Here are links to some online books and documents pertaining to the history of Amherst
History of the Town of Amherst (1896)
The Handbook of Amherst (1891)
Early History of Hadley, including Amherst (1863)
Student Life at Amherst College (1871)
History of the Adams and Hastings Families of Amherst (1880)
A Sermon on the Necessities of War (1861)
Western New England – Amherst (1912)
The Amherst Record – March 17, 1888
The Birds of Amherst and Vicinity (1906)
The Hills Family in Amherst: A History and Timeline
A List of Antique Telephone and Business Directories
Amherst Directory 1889 – 1890
Amherst Directory 1892 – 1893
Amherst Directory 1895
Amherst Directory 1897 – 1898
Amherst Directory 1905 – 1906
Amherst Directory 1908
Amherst Directory 1909
Amherst Directory 1910
Amherst Directory 1911
Amherst Directory 1912
Amherst Directory 1913
Amherst Directory 1914
Amherst Directory 1916
Amherst Directory 1917
Amherst Directory 1919
Amherst Directory 1921
Amherst Directory 1923
Over the years, films have been made which feature one or another aspect of life in the Pioneer Valley and its surrounding hills. Here are several:
In the 1950’s, the tobacco industry made a promotional film about tobacco farming in the Connecticut River valley:
Tobacco Valley
In 1973, Northeast Utilities erected a weather monitoring tower on the Montague Plain, as part of a plan to build a nuclear power plant. On Washington’s Birthday in 1974, in an act of civil disobedience, local farmer Sam Lovejoy cut the guy wires for the tower, causing it to fall. This is the story of his trial:
Lovejoy’s Nuclear War
And in 1973, WGBY partnered with Greenfield Community College to gather the stories of the old Yankee farmers in the hilltowns:
Root, Hog or Die
Then forty years later they made a sequel, talking to contemporary farmers:
A Long Row in Fertile Ground
Around that time, WGBY also made a film to celebrate 150 years of the Morrill Land Grant Act, and they focussed on the University of Massachusetts:
The Radical Idea
In 2012, Dr Maynard Seider of North Adams partnered with Amherst Media to produce a documentary film, A Farewell to Factory Towns?, about the closing of the Sprague Electric factory.
