David Ruggles Center

Our Mission:

The David Ruggles Center for History and Education honors the contributions made to the abolition of slavery by courageous individuals in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts. Our location in the village of Florence within Northampton commemorates those who came here to challenge slavery, live in freedom, and establish a community based on principles of race, gender, class, and religious equality. We seek to educate and inspire our visitors to possibilities in the present by sharing these powerful voices from the past.

The Road Ahead: 

April 8, 2018 marks the tenth anniversary of the David Ruggles Center for History and Education, a date chosen to commemorate the founding of the Northampton Association and Industry on April 8, 1842, 175 years ago this year.

 Thousands of educators and students, local citizens and tourists, have found their way to Florence to walk where Sojourner Truth, Lydia Maria Child, David Ruggles, and Charles C. Burleigh lived in community with self-emancipated former slaves including Basil Dorsey, George Washington Sullivan, Henry Anthony, Joseph Willson, and George Hodestia whose lives are traced in our archives. The presence of abolitionist and reform visitors Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Theodore D. Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, among others, add weight to the potential for first-hand historical interpretation.

 The history of Florence, Massachusetts, with its stories of struggle for human rights and freedom of expression, resonates with students, scholars, and “average” citizens alike. Teachers are using the unfolding story of Florence to help illustrate the tides of national history in the pre-Civil War North. The powerful story, set in compact, relatively well-preserved built and open landscapes, is unique.

 The David Ruggles Center for Education and History is a facility of the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Working with the Massachusetts Historical Commission, two other Network to Freedom sites, The Ross Homestead (123 Meadow Street) and the Dorsey/Jones House (191 Nonotuck Street), have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.