The Greenfield Historical Society has been awarded $1,250 grant to support its project to publish a book about Greenfield’s history.
The 2021 Historic New England Herbert and Louise Whitney Fund Community Preservation Grant is only awarded to one small- to medium-sized preservation organization in each New England state, according to Greenfield Historical Society treasurer Amy Lowell. The criteria for the grant is that it must go toward a project that saves and shares the community’s history and culture as part of New England.
“We didn’t think we had a chance of getting it. I mean, we thought it was a long shot,” Lowell said. “The fact that we ended up getting it for New Hampshire was really quite a feather in our cap for us.”
The project it will fund has been in the works in Greenfield for months now – a book titled “Shocking but True, Revealing Stories of Greenfield’s Unknown History.” It will be a book focusing on the characters of Greenfield, Lowell said, telling stories about the residents of the town, both past and present. The money will go toward the purchase of software that will allow the society to self-publish the book.
While the book is only one of the society’s current projects, it will be the main focus for the winter, according to Lowell. The society is going to conduct research in its archives for interesting stories from the 1800s and 1900s, and will do interviews with current residents about more-recent tales of town history.
“We just wanted to bring light to the town and some of the interesting stories that we have as a town, so we can sort of celebrate,” Lowell said.
Not all of the stories will be wholly truthful, Lowell added, but “that’s what makes it sort of fun.” The book will potentially contain different versions of the same story, and a disclaimer that all of the stories are from personal perspectives.
“It’s a project that’s going to evolve as it goes along,” Lowell said, in terms of combining all of the research into a cohesive book.
The book will be the first in a series, Lowell said. The subjects of the other volumes aren’t set in stone, but they might involve a book on industry in town and one focusing on the history of various houses.
Lowell said that part of the goal for this project is to engage more of the community in the history of the town, especially young people.
“Most of the people that are currently involved with the historical society are in their 60s or older, and we can’t survive with that, so we have some really fun things going on,” Lowell said. “We’re trying to brainstorm ways to get children interested in history.”
This includes making the book project accessible for children with a simple, light tone and incorporating lots of pictures. Lowell hopes to make the book interactive, and include video of interviews with town residents to go along with it. She is also considering promoting the book with family events such as a scavenger hunt.
The society is also trying to appeal to children with the rest of their offerings, Lowell said, such as redoing all of their displays to be user-friendly and hands-on.
In the same spirit of bringing in the wider community, Lowell said that the society hopes to interview as many people as possible for the book.
“We would love to get input from everywhere, everyone who has a story,” she said. “We want to try to make it a community project – anybody who thinks they have information they’d want to share, we’d certainly welcome any info.”