They are all part of a Howes Brothers photographic collection now housed at the Greenfield Public Library on microfilm that captures a range of life and work in New England from 1882 through 1907.
Sean B. Flynn, head of information services for the Greenfield Public Library, shows a paper copy of a photograph of a house produced by the Howes Brothers. The microfilm machine behind him at the library can be used to see thousands of photographs the men took.GREENFIELD – Loggers, painters, quarry workers and children.
Bridge builders, nuns, raccoon hunters and merchants.
They are all part of a Howes Brothers photographic collection now housed at the Greenfield Public Library on microfilm that captures a range of life and work in New England from 1882 through 1907.
The 20,000-item collection of 19th- and early 20th-century photographs focuses on life in rural New England; it is the surviving product of a family firm of itinerant, commercial photographers whose headquarters were in Ashfield and the Turners Falls section of Montague.
“The fact that they (the images) are here is absolutely incredible,” said Paul R. Grzybowski, of Orange. “This is fantastic.”
He has used the collection “again and again” for historical research for himself and others, he said, and is pleased it is now easily accessible in the library’s Greenfield Room, where local history materials are kept.
The collection – one of only four of its kind – had been stored at the Greenfield Community College library.
“We hope it will be more accessible here (at the Main Street library) and that more people will be able to get into them,” said Sean B. Flynn, head of information services for the Greenfield Public Library.
The library acquired the 29 reels of microfilm in mid-January.
The other three sets are held by the Ashfield Historical Society, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Boston Public Library.
The historical society has the original glass plates that once had been stored in apple boxes in the attic of a tavern, Flynn said. “They didn’t know what they had,” he said.
The plates were discovered in the 1960s and given to the historical society which secured a grant in the 1970s to preserve the photographs on microfilm.
Calling the microfilm reels “a wonderful historical resource,” Flynn said the library is the perfect place to store them and make them available for public viewing. “We’re the main historical repository for Franklin County,” he said.
The photographs provide a visual record of what life was like at the time Alvah, Walter and George Howes were taking the photographs.
Viewers can learn about architecture by looking at the mansions, storefronts, farmhouses, homes in towns and one-room schoolhouses; the photographs show in intricate detail how people dressed, how they traveled and how they farmed.
The brothers recorded life with an eye for detail.
Several years ago some of the photos were compiled into a book, “New England Reflections 1882-1907 Photographs by the Howes Brothers,” edited by Alan B. Newman.
An index to the collection is available at the library, and paper copies are 10 cents each.