Slavery in Western Massachusetts, Physics on the Bus, & More

              Robert H. Romer (personal website: www.amherst.edu/~rhromer )        

My book on slavery in this area has recently been published:

Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts

Published by Levellers Press of Florence, Massachusetts. 

Click here for a book announcement with ordering information.

  (Largely because of my concentration on the book, a lot of the other information on this site is out of date now - especially the slavery information.)...

I gave a related talk on this subject on Sunday, March 8, 2009.  "Slavery in Colonial Amherst".  2:00 P.M. at Hope Church on Gaylord Street in Amherst. (This was part of the town's 250th birthday celebration. More or less the same talk was given again on October 18, 2009 - same time and place.)

I have here various information, professional and personal. My recent research, talks, walking tours on dealing with slavery in the Connecticut Valley of western Massachusetts in colonial time; My "Physics on the Bus" project; History of Physics; Some of my recent (and not-so-recent) books and publications; My c.v.; Miscellaneous biographical and autobiographical notes. Etc., etc.

Click on one of the links below for:

1) Slavery in colonial New England (the Connecticut Valley of western Massachusetts in particular) is something I have been working on for a large part of my so-called spare time since 2001. I have some new information, and I also have been giving a great many talks to a variety of groups as well as giving walking tours of sites (and houses) where enslaved African-Americans lived in the 1700s.     Connecticut Valley Slavery          

2) One of my physics projects is what I variously call "Physics on the Bus", "Physics on the Subway (POTS)", "PhysicsQandA", or "Thinking About Physics":           PhysicsQandA      

3) In 2003, I was elected to be an officer of the "Forum on the History of Physics", the history branch of the American Physical Society. The following link takes you to the History Forum's webpage:    Forum on the History of Physics

4) Publications, books, my c.v., other biographical and personal information: RHRbio (includes Fox Trot, Shady Hill School, etc.)

5) I "retired" from the Amherst College faculty in 2001. (I've been here for a while -- since 1955. For the last 13 years on the faculty, 1988-2001, I spent almost all my time being editor of the American Journal of Physics.) A bit more about me (even with a photo) is on the Amherst College Physics Department site:     RHR at ACPD (This site has since been revised - Most of the information previously there has gone missing.)

6) Epitaphs and photographs of the gravestones in the old Deerfield burying ground. As a library volunteer at Deerfield, I scanned some 106 gravestones (those with initial letters A-C, about 1/3 of all the gravestones). I also transcribed the appropriate eptaphs from the Baker & Coleman book and added some genealogical information from Sheldon's history. These were originally intended for the "Digital Deerfield" website; it has now been decided to do that project in a different way, but here for your viewing pleasure are the ones that I finished up.        Gravestone photographs and epitaphs

For feedback and more information:

Robert H. Romer, Physics Department, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. 01002; 413-542-2258; rhromer (at) amherst.edu

And thanks to Amherst College for providing server space for faculty and student websites.