Research Areas: Local History

Amherst’s public library. Holdings include regional history, genealogy, manuscripts and photographs.

Digital Amherst is a project of the Jones Library, the public library of Amherst, Massachusetts. It is a pilot project to develop a small but rich online collection of the historic and cultural stories about the town of Amherst and its influence in the Connecticut Valley and beyond.

Among the collections digitized by UMass Amherst’s Special Collections are over 40,000 items from the W.E.B. Dubois papers including correspondence, writings, and photographs making this a great resource for historians.

A portal to the rich cultural heritage held in museums, historical societies, colleges, libraries and other cultural repositories in Massachusetts. From this site you can search or browse the digital collections of over 100 member institutions throughout the state for manuscripts, images, historical documents, and sound recordings, providing you with enhanced access and retrieval of information.
Over a hundred organizations are members of Digital Commonwealth. As more of our members contribute their holdings, the variety and quantity of searchable objects will increase, and the richer and more valuable this portal will become.

An electronic almanac of Massachusetts history produced by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities.

The David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History & Underground Railroad Studies aims to collect and organize comprehensive copies of all materials pertinent to the early history of Florence and the Underground Railroad in western Massachusetts; providing historical exhibits, lectures and walking tours. The website contains historical and biographical articles on abolitionists and early African American residents.

A great local history resource! Search by keyword in Historic Northampton’s digital catalog and archives containing thousands of photographs, historic newspapers and maps, and extensive digital collections database. Includes the Howes Brothers Collection, genealogy resources, and images of the earliest issues of the Daily Hampshire Gazette.