Williamstown, Massachusetts

Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War in 1755. Williams's main campus is located in Williamstown, in the Berkshires in rural northwestern Massachusetts, and contains more than 100 academic, athletic, and residential buildings. There are 360 voting faculty members, with a student-to-faculty ratio of 6:1. As of 2022, the school has an enrollment of 2,021 undergraduate students and 50 graduate students.Following a liberal arts curriculum, Williams College provides undergraduate instruction in 25 academic departments and interdisciplinary programs including 36 majors in the humanities, arts, social sciences, and natural sciences. Williams offers an almost entirely undergraduate instruction, though there are two graduate programs in development economics and art history. The college maintains affiliations with the nearby Clark Art Institute and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), and has a close relationship with Exeter College, Oxford. The college competes in the NCAA Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference as the Ephs. Williams College has won 22 of the last 24 College Directors' Cups for NCAA Division III.Prominent alumni include 9 Pulitzer Prize winners, 2 Nobel Prize laureates, a Fields medalist, a Lasker award recipient, 16 billionaires, 71 members of the United States Congress, 22 U.S. Governors, 4 U.S. Cabinet secretaries, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, a President of the United States, 3 prime ministers, CEOs and founders of Fortune 500 companies, multiple Emmy, Oscar, Tony, and Grammy award winners, and professional athletes. Other notable alumni include 40 Rhodes Scholars and 17 Marshall Scholarship recipients.

US Post Office–Williamstown Main is a historic post office at 56 Spring Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Built in 1932, it is an architecturally significant local example of Classical Revival architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Hopkins Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts (USA). Constructed in 1838 by Albert Hopkins, the college claims that it is the oldest observatory in the United States. The observatory dates to 1834 when Prof. Albert Hopkins traveled to England to obtain astronomical equipment. His students constructed the observatory 1836-1838 in the center of the quad. It was moved once in 1908 and again to its present location in 1961, where it now serves as a planetarium. Today's building still contains the original transit, regulator with mercury-compensated pendulum, and rule. The museum's second director, Truman Henry Safford, was a calculating prodigy. In 1852 the firm of Alvan Clark (Cambridge, Massachusetts) built a 7" refracting telescope, which was restored for the observatory's sesquicentennial. In 1963 the planetarium projector was installed and named in memory of Willis Milham, professor of astronomy 1901-1942. The observatory's side rooms have become the Mehlin Museum of Astronomy in memory of Theodore Mehlin, professor of astronomy 1942-1971.

WCFM (91.9 FM) is a radio station broadcasting a variety format. Licensed to Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States, the station is owned by Williams College. Shows are run by students, faculty and Williamstown community members.

The Williamstown Theatre Festival is a resident summer theater on the campus of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1954 by Williams College news director Ralph Renzi and drama program chairman David C. Bryant. It was awarded a Tony Award in 2002 and the Massachusetts Cultural Council Commonwealth Award in 2011.

Weston Field Athletic Complex is a Williams College facility and home of the Williams Ephs football team in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Although primarily used for American football, the complex also hosts the home fields for the Williams College track & field, lacrosse and field hockey programs. Renovations completed in 2014 include artificial turf surfaces, a new grandstand, an addition for field hockey, a new track, lighting for the fields and a large support building. Weston Field biennially hosts the Williams-Amherst football game, known as The Biggest Little Game in America, the most-played Division III football rivalry game and the only Division III game to have hosted College GameDay.

The Boston Finishing Works is a historic industrial factory complex at 160 Water Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The site was developed industrially beginning in 1873, and was in regular use until 2000 as one of the town's major industrial employers. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Taconic Golf Club is a semi-private golf course located in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The land that Taconic Golf Club is owned by Williams College, but an independent Board of Directors oversees the daily operation. The course has repeatedly made Golf Magazine's list of the Top 100 Courses You Can Play and Golfweek's list of top collegiate campus courses, where it was most recently ranked 3rd in 2020. Golf Digest ranks Taconic as the 9th best course in the state of Massachusetts.

Williamstown is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Williamstown in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population of the CDP was 4,325 at the 2010 census, out of 7,754 in the entire town.

East Lawn Cemetery and Sherman Burbank Memorial Chapel is a historic cemetery and chapel at 605 Main Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1842, it is the newest and largest cemetery in Williamstown; the two older cemeteries date to the 18th century. It was established at a time when West Lawn Cemetery (established 1766) was in need of expansion, and this site was chosen for the location of a new cemetery. The initial few acres of land were donated by Asahel Foote, who sat on the committee formed to investigate the town's cemetery needs. The cemetery grew in size over the next several decades, reaching a size of about 40 acres (16 ha) by the early 20th century. Approximately half of the cemetery (representing its developed portion) and its associated chapel were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.The Sherman Burbank Memorial Chapel was designed in 1935 by Frank Rushmore Watson in the Late Gothic Revival style, and dedicated in 1937. An associated cottage, probably intended for a caretaker, was also planned but never built. The funding for the chapel came from Sherman H. Banks of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, whose mother was from the Sherman family that was one of Williamstown's oldest. The chapel is located near the cemetery entrance, not far from Main Road. In addition to the main chapel chamber, it has a space off to one side for use as a receiving vault, and a porte cochere with a small hall and other facilities on the west side.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European and American paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, and decorative arts from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century. The Clark, along with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), forms a trio of art museums in the Berkshires. The institute also serves as a center for research and higher learning. It is home to various research and academic programs, which include the Fellowship Program and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art, as well as one of the most distinguished research libraries in the country, with more than 295,000 volumes in over 72 languages. The Clark is visited by 200,000 people a year, and offers many educational programs for visitors of all ages throughout the year.

The Allan Sekula Library is an archival and research collection of volumes, which is held in the Library of the Clark Art Institute. In 2015, the library of the Clark Art Institute acquired The Allan Sekula Library from the artist's widow, art historian and professor Sally Stein. The library comprises a collection of 15,000 volumes, which were assembled by the artist over the course of his career. A thoughtful and thought-provoking artist, photographer, filmmaker, and writer, Allan Sekula (1951-2013) was equally recognized as a public intellectual, art critic and theoretist, and for the social commentary, criticism, and activism that informed his life and work. Allan was a member of the Photography and Media Program faculty at California Institute of the Arts from 1985 until his death in 2013, and is well remembered as a generous and supportive teacher.As installed in the Manton Center Reading Room, The Allan Sekula Library reflects his organization of the books throughout the household spaces and studio. Allan organized and displayed his books according to research interest; collecting both rare, classic and current titles as pertinent to his project topic. As an example, his many volumes on Laos and the Vietnam War were found in close proximity on shelves in the Allan Studio Book Room. Allan researched these topics by including novels, travel guides, language primers, and recipe books, as well as volumes related to political and social analysis. Subjects in his library were never assigned to one shelf; his thought and research processes resulted in shelf order which comingled subjects and demonstrated his cross-references. The titles and shelf order in his studio, study, bedroom and garden shed all exemplify the depth of his investigations into projects concepts.