Photography in Deerfield. (Current and Coming).(Brief Article)

Much has been written about Deerfield, Massachusetts, as a hub of the American arts and crafts movement, particularly as the home of the Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework and the Deerfield Society of Arts and Crafts. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the movement was in full flower, a pair of sisters--Frances Stebbins Allen and Mary Electa Allen--were distinguished practitioners of pictorial photography who exhibited their work along with some of the leading lights of the period. Simultaneously Deerfield's historic architecture and its important role in New England's history made it a center of the colonial revival movement.

Handcraftsmanship was encouraged, and the old ways of making baskets, rugs, netting, metalwork, pottery, and furniture were adopted by the various organizations there. Tourists were drawn to the town, particularly in the summer months. The Allen sisters held center stage in Deerfield; their works were favorably reviewed; and their national reputation established. Their work is the subject of a traveling exhibition entitled The Allen Sisters: Pictorial Photographers 1885-1920, which is on view at the Memorial Hall Museum of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association until October 31. The photographs in the show include country scenes, figure and child studies, and landscapes.

The Allen sisters began as schoolteachers, careers they were forced to abandon when they suffered hearing losses. Their teaching experience contributed greatly to their deserved reputation for creating unstilted and engaging photographs of children. While they were self-taught, they read professional periodicals and kept abreast of the latest advances in the field. They sent work to photography competitions and local crafts exhibitions and were successful at having their best efforts published in books and magazines, such as Good Housekeeping and the Ladies' Home Journal. By November 1918, one of their nieces wrote, "the ...