In a collaboration with Masci Webdesign, Skytemple’s own Leah, Jen and Kelly have programmed and tested a new online archive and teaching aide, Emerging America. Commissioned by the Collaborative for Educational Services, Emerging America and its online exhibits are providing easy access to primary sources for teachers to incorporate into the teaching of history as it relates to Northampton, Florence, Hadley and surrounding areas of Western Massachusetts. The website is a fantastic resource, highlighting pieces of local history to create an entry point and fuller picture of historical events and issues as a whole.
One of the online exhibits, Radical Equality (1842-1847) details the activities of a group of local abolitionists who founded an utopian community. They called themselves the Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI) and in the four years of the community’s activity they gained the attention of many notable people, including Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles. The NAEI supported their democratic and egalitarian principles by manufacturing silk thread, finding a way to function in the newly industrialized world, free of slave labor. The site presents letters, photographs, newspaper articles and many other primary sources that illuminate the ground-breaking undertakings of the NAEI and its members.
Recently, Curtiss and Leah joined the Collaborative for Educational Services for the website unveiling at the Historic Northampton Museum.
Congratulations to all involved for the launching of a unique and important website!