Selectman and Wife
After progressive hearing loss forced them to give up their chosen careers in teaching, Frances and Mary Allen took up photography in the mid-1880s. Influenced by the social and aesthetic reforms of the Arts and Crafts movement, the sisters specialized in views of their native Deerfield, Massachusetts, and posed genre scenes of life in colonial times. Around the turn of the century, their idealized pictures of country folk became popular with book and magazine publishers capitalizing on Colonial Revival interests. This photograph served as an illustration for the story "The Knuckling Down of Mrs. Gamble," in the January 1900 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine.
Artwork Details
- Title: Selectman and Wife
- Artist: Frances S. Allen (American, 1854–1941)
- Artist: Mary E. Allen (American, 1858–1941)
- Date: ca. 1899
- Medium: Platinum print
- Dimensions: 20.7 x 15.7 cm. (8 1/8 x 6 3/16 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1975
- Object Number: 1975.527.7
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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