Invest in History and Our Town's Future!
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Florence has emerged as one of the most important Northeast locations for the interpretation of African Americans’ cause for freedom. Establishing an historical education center on Nonotuck Street will serve to deepen the experience of students, teachers and the general public.
Neil Larson President, Larson Fisher Associates, Inc.
Historic Preservation and Planning Services
Breaking News! The Northampton City Council has given final approval of Community Preservation funding of $150,000 for the David Ruggles Center's purchase of 225 Nonotuck Street. Help us raise the additional $50,000 needed to preserve an important piece of Florence history and secure a permanent home for the The David Ruggles Center for Early Florence History and Underground Railroad Studies.
Over the next three months, the David Ruggles Center Committee is seeking the financial support of those throughout the region and beyond who might be interested in the unique history of Florence and of those who helped shape some of the most important social movements in our country's history.
Time is of the essence. The historic site in question, at 225 Nonotuck Street, was temporarily saved from the wrecking ball this past summer thanks to the efforts of the David Ruggles Committee and the cooperation of the site's current owner. The structure is now part of a "smart-development" plan to create greatly anticipated live/work space and a home for the David Ruggles Center in Florence's historic mill district, but the building's acquisition by the Ruggles Committee must be finalized for these plans to move forward. And that's where we all come in.
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By mid-February the Ruggles Committee must raise $50,000 to purchase and restore the 1850s house at 225 Nonotuck Street so that the historic structure might be saved and the establishment of the David Ruggles Center across the street from the site of the Northampton Association of Education and Industry can be realized. In the 1840s and 50s it was here that Sojourner Truth first met Frederick Douglass, where William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillip spoke passionately against the slave power, and where David Ruggles presence helped grow a multiracial community that by 1850 was 10 percent African-American.
In 2002, through community financial support, The Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue was dedicated not far from 225 Nonotuck at the corner of Park and Pine Streets in Florence. The site’s thousands of visitors attest to how significantly the Statue has contributed to the remembrance of the abolition era activists who forged early Florence. Now it is time to deepen our understanding by providing a home for the volumes of research papers accumulated over the years by Florence historians and, in cooperation with numerous repositories across New England, provide a museum to tell the story.
Please consider joining the growing number of supporters of the David Ruggles Center, a museum, archive and education center, committed to preserving the history of the progressive reformers that founded the village of Florence.
Send your tax deductible contribution to:
The David Ruggles Center
Box 60405
Florence, MA 01062
If you want more information please write us at:
info@davidrugglescenter.org
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