Florence is a village in the northwestern portion of the city of Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States.

Before the arrival of European settlers, the area of Florence and Northampton was called Nonotuck, meaning either "middle of the river" or "far away land.

Other names included "Warner School District" after three brothers who had lived in the area during the early 19th century, and "The Community" referring to the Northampton Association of Education and Industry from 1842 through 1846.

[5][6] Factory villages along the Mill River were producing cotton goods, silk, wool, thread, buttons, wood items for domestic use, furniture, and leather by 1840.

[7] Due to economic recession and losing critical investors, Whitmarsh sold this business which was later purchased by the Northampton Association of Education and Industry.

This utopian community drew upon the principles of Fourierism and mixed it with interests in radical abolitionism, temperance, manufacturing, and education.

Born in Smithfield, Rhode Island to Quaker parents, Hill had trained as a carpenter and was the superintendent of a cotton textile factory in Willimantic, Connecticut.

[12] A member of the anti-slavery movement, Hill's home at 31-35 Maple Street in Florence served as a stop for the Underground Railroad.

[14] NAEI introduced Truth to William Lloyd Garrison who connected her to the printer of The Liberator and Frederick Douglass's slave narrative.

[18] By the early 1840s, Ruggles was struggling due to falling out with the New York Committee of Vigilance, the death of his father, protests in New England over segregated seating on trains, and his overall declining health rendered him almost blind.

Mirage Studios, the creative force behind the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books, was based out of a renovated factory space in Florence.