Town of Amherst Collection
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> Scope and Contents of the Collection
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Scope and Contents of the Collection
The Town of Amherst Collection contains materials dating from 1828 to the present, with the bulk of the material dated 1920-1959. The materials include: written histories of the town; local government records; records of schools, private organizations, and local businesses; and some personal papers. Also included are souvenirs and programs of community events, maps of the town, and a large number of newspaper clippings. The most extensive group of records within the collection is "City Planning" (in the Local Government Series), consisting mostly of correspondence, minutes, and reports of the Town Planning Board and the Massachusetts Federation of Planning Boards (ca. 1920-1927). Town planning reports and maps from other towns have been kept with this group because of their connection to the Federation. (The Amherst Town Planning Board was also a member.) Also of interest are the Amherst Historical Society records. These include correspondence between Mabel Loomis Todd and a Boston attorney regarding the founding of the Society. A number of photographs of the Strong House Museum, originally included, have been removed to the Photographic Images Collection. The Histories Series includes three histories of Amherst and the Connecticut Valley, written by Alice M. Walker and printed in 1901 and 1903, as well as an Amherst College class paper that includes several oral histories of town residents. In the Schools Series are materials relating to specific Amherst schools. The Mt. Pleasant Classical Institution, also known as Mt. Pleasant Institute, is well represented. This collection is organized into eighteen series:
Most of the materials have been arranged into series by subject, then alphabetically within each series. Certain materials have been separated into their own series by type, such as Newspapers and Clippings. |