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.