[Antiracism] Guided Tour, Northampton Association of Education and Industry

[Steve Strimer]

*Dear Friends,*
*Please let your friends know about this Tour coming up this coming
Saturday. Hope you can make it.*
*Steve*
**
*Second Saturday Tours of Florence History:
NORTHAMPTON ASSOCIATION OF EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY
* *Saturday, July 12 leaves from Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue at 10:00 am
*
Before there was a Florence, Massachusetts there was the Northampton
Association of Education and Industry. Established from the remnants of the
Northampton Silk Company in what was then known as Broughton's Meadows, the
NAEI sought to reorganize society on a cooperative basis. Its constitution,
adopted April 8, 1842 made emphatic this goal of reform:
It is impossible to survey the present condition of the world . . . without
perceiving the great evils that afflict humanity, and recognizing many of
them as the direct consequences of existing social arrangements. Life is
with some a mere round of frivolous occupations or vicious enjoyments, with
most a hard struggle for the bare means of subsistence. The former are
exempted from productive labor while they enjoy its fruits: upon the latter
it is imposed as a task with unreasonable severity and inadequate
compensation.
Its four-and-a-half-year run ended not in an explosive breakup but a gradual
transition to what NAEI historian Christopher Clark has called "the
neighborhood community." By the time of its last meeting on November 7, 1846
many of its leaders were already settling into private homes in Eaton's
Village Lots bordered by modern day Pine, Park and Maple Streets. By 1852
these utopian hangers-on had founded the village of Florence and began to
build the great industries and institutions that fueled its expansion
through the rest of the century.

On Saturday, July 12 at 10 a.m. local historian Steve Strimer will lead a
guided tour of the numerous sites that remain from the days of the NAEI when
Sojourner Truth, Lydia Maria Child, William Lloyd Garrison, David Ruggles,
Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips and others brought the struggle for
immediate emancipation and equal rights before the people of Hampshire
County. The tour will leave from the Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue at the
corner of Park and Pine Street Florence. Donations will benefit the newly
formed David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground
Railroad Studies (www.davidrugglescenter.org).

The next tour is scheduled for Saturday, August 9 and will emphasize the
Watercure of David Ruggles and Charles Munde. If you have questions contact
Steve Strimer at stevestrimer at gmail.com
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