Amherst College Bicentennial

In 2021 Amherst College will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of college. In the Amherst College Library, we are working on a series of projects to select, digitize, describe, and make available online materials from the college archives and special collections to help capture some of the history of the institution.

The projects are underway and we want to share our progress on this work through this website, where you can learn more about the many digital projects focused on the bicentennial from our collection overview pages. Our goal is to have as much of the material in the digital projects accessible through our online digital repository, Amherst College Digital Collections (ACDC), by 2021.

For more information about how collections were chosen for the bicentennial, see Manda Wise Pizzollo’s excellent blog post on the subject.  For an overview of our process, from archival processing to digitization to metadata, see Sarah Walden McGowan’s Welcome to the Bicentennial post.

See the February 2019 progress report by Manda Wise Pizzollo.

Year Three Projects (2019-2020):

Amherst College Class Album Collection (selection)

Amherst College Photographer Records, 1960-2005 (ongoing)

Amherst College Scrapbooks Collection (selection)

Amherst College Student and Alumni Publications Collection (Amherst Student)

Buildings and Grounds Collection, 1820 – (selection)

Dramatic Activities Collection, 1826-present (selection)

Frederick Brewster Loomis (AC 1896) Papers

Year Two Projects (2018-2019):

Amherst College Administrative Publications Collection

Amherst College Photographer Records, 1960-2005 (ongoing)

Amherst College Student and Alumni Publications Collection (series 4 and 6)

Dean of Faculty Records, Public Meeting Minutes

Henry J. Van Lennep (AC 1837) Sketches and Papers, 1834-1879

Justin Perkins (AC 1829) Papers, circa 1830-1869

Year One Projects (2017-2018):

Admission Office, Annual Reports to Secondary Schools

Amherst College Photographer Records, 1960-2005 (ongoing)

Amherst College Commencement Collection

Amherst College Early History Collection

Amherst College Early History Manuscripts & Pamphlets Collection 

Amherst College Student and Alumni Publications Collection

Sidney Brooks (AC 1841) Papers

Project Team:
  • Jennifer Bolmarcich, Archives &  Special Collections
  • Bryn Geffert, Librarian of the College
  • Kate Gerrity, Metadata
  • Rachel Jirka, Archives & Special Collections
  • Mike Kelly, Archives & Special Collections
  • Tim Pinault, Digital Programs
  • Amanda Wise Pizzollo, Metadata
  • Este Pope, Digital Programs
  • Johanna Radding, Metadata
  • Sarah Walden McGowan, Digital Programs