Alvah Howes (1853-1919) took up photography as a profession in the 1880s and in the years that followed, convinced his brothers Walter and later George to join him. Residents of Ashfield, Mass., the brothers were remarkably persistent and productive photographers, traveling throughout Western Massachusetts to photograph a panoply of daily life, work, and leisure over a career that spanned two decades.

In 1888, the Howes established a studio in Turners Falls, Mass., which Alvah operated until the business foundered following the Depression of 1893. The brothers resumed work in 1896, however they ceased touring in about 1902 and their production tailed off until they quit photography in about 1906. During their career, the Howes took over 20,000 dry plate images, creating one of the most extensive and important visual archives for the region.

The Howes brothers, Alvah, Walter, and George, traveled the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts taking photographs of the residents, documenting pictorially the customs, fashions, architecture, industry, technology, and economic conditions of rural New England at the turn of the century. This collection consists of 200 study prints selected from 20,000 negatives on microfilm in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library (name and town index available with the microfilm). The original glass plates are housed in the Ashfield Historical Society, Ashfield, Massachusetts.

A microfilm set (number 5121, reels 1-29) in the Du Bois Library's Microforms Area, includes all of the more than 20,000 Howes photographs in the Ashfield Historical Society's collection.

Acquired from Ashfield Historical Society, 1980

The images in this collection were printed from originals held by the Ashfield Historical Society, Ashfield, Mass.

Processed by SCUA staff.