Browse Exhibits (27 total)
Amherst Neighborhoods
Explorations of the neighborhoods and houses of Amherst, including historical and current maps.
Amherst and the Muses
History and biographies, as well as examples of the works and influences of Amherst's many literary, intellectual, and artistic figures.
Amherst's Changing Physical Landscape
The vastness of Amherst's topography, roads, and population centers, displayed in images, maps, and essays.
Anna Johnson's Scrapbook
A scrapbook about Anna McQueston Johnson, wife of Hadley author, photographer and artist Clifton Johnson. This scrapbook includes letters, newspaper clippings and other ephemera relating to Hadley, the McQueston and Johnson families, Anna's work with UMass Amherst and various local civic organizations, and the world travels that gained Anna the nickname "the Traveling Grandmother".
Been Here and Gone: African Americans at the Turn of the Century
Been Here and Gone: African Americans at the turn of the Century was an exhibit of 50 photographs by Clifton Johnson displayed in the Burnett Gallery at the Jones Library. The photographs show the everyday lives of African Americans in the South. Cynthia Packard, a faculty member in the Afro-American Studies Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst printed the photographs from the original 4"x6" glass plate negatives, taken by Johnson on his trips around 1901-1902. The negatives are located in the Special Collections Department at the Jones. Johnson used many of these photographs in his books including Highways and Byways of the South, Highways and Byways of Florida, and Highways and Byways of the Mississippi, as well as two articles in The Outlook Magazine. Where possible, captions represent the exhibit title. Otherwise, the titles are Johnson's own.
Business, Industry, and Transportation
The evolution of local commerce and the development of Amherst as an entrepreneurial and industrial center.
Celebrating Local Authors
Photographs of local authors by library assistant, Janice Doyama, taken during the COVID-19 Pandemic in 2020.
Clifton Johnson
Explores the life and work of Clifton Johnson, including his writings, photography and other artwork.
History of 43 Amity Street
In accordance with the stipulations of the 2025 MOA signed between the Jones Library, the Town of Amherst and the Massachusetts Historical Commission, we present the histoical narrative and photographs of the Jones Library building at 43 Amity Street.
We would like to thank architectural historian Virginia H. Adams for creating the historical documentation and architectural photographer Stephen Miller of Studio M13 for taking the many photographs.
In the Catskills
Almost a century ago local author, artist, and photographer Clifton Johnson traveled to visit his longtime friend, naturalist John Burroughs. Together they wandered the fields and farmland surrounding his home in New York’s Catskills. These excursions were documented through Johnson’s precise eye and delicate camerawork. Each photograph captures a moment foreign in time and yet familiar today. In his images of daily life one is met with a resounding presence, as if each moment captured in Johnson’s lens lives on.
Love and Courtship by Mail
Writing a letter may seem outdated in the modern era since we can now communicate instantly via texting, email, and video calls but for most of human history snail mail was the dominant form of communication. Letters told the news from home, conducted business, or even proposed marriage. Many different aspects of love and courtship have taken place through the mail over the years. Love letters slipped into a classmate’s desk, flowery declarations of love, and epistles formally asking a father for permission to court his daughter are all included in this exhibit. Love and courtship does not always end happily ever after and the more painful side is seen in a letter rejecting a suitor.