 ALLEN
SISTERS |
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Old Deerfield, Massachusetts Museums of Deerfield Memorial Hall Museum / Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association / Deerfield Children's Museum |
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| Allen Sisters' Photographs One of the greatest treasures in Memorial Hall Museum is the extensive collection of Allen sisters' prints and glass plate negatives. Frances Allen (1854-1941) and Mary Allen (1858-1941) of Deerfield, Massachusetts are renowned for idealized photographs of country scenes, figure and child studies, and landscapes dating from 1885 to 1920. |
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 Hay Cart Photograph by Allen, Frances and Mary c. 1899 |
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| The Allen sisters began their careers as teachers, but when deafness dictated a change of profession, they turned to photography. The historic town of Deerfield was an ideal location for their Pictorial photographs. In a letter published in the March 1894 photography journal, The Photo-Beacon, Frances and Mary Allen offer insight into their work: | ||||
 Morning Light Photograph by Frances Allen c. 1905 |
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| We use the camera simply as a quick way of sketching, and regard all the technical part, which comes after the exposure is made, as a necessary evil…. In pictures, artistic excellence is usually entirely at variance with what is called a perfect photograph. The eye cannot focus itself on every object in its field of vision at the same time. If a photograph does this, the effect is hard and unnatural. But there must be method in this madness. A picture is not necessarily beautiful because it is blurred, and there's need of all one's technical skill, even after a good negative is made, in adapting the print to its peculiar individual qualities. | ||||
 Sudden Storm Photograph by Frances and Mary Allen c. 1901 |
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| The merit of posing, which you kindly give us credit for, belongs rather to the models. Our chief virtue is in letting them alone. We usually have better success with children who are not too highly civilized, or too conventionally clothed, or who are too young to be conscious. We give them a general idea of the picture we want, and then let them alone until they forget about us and the drop catches an unconscious pose. They consider it a game, and are always ready to play at it. As the nineteenth century came to a close and people became nostalgic for simpler times, the Allen sisters' photographs were embraced. Publications, exhibitions and a salesroom in the front parlor of their eighteenth-century home assured Frances and Mary Allen a wide audience. The Allen Sisters: Pictorial Photographers 1885-1920 An illustrated biography of Frances and Mary Allen is also available (click the link to Publications). Research in the Allen Sisters Collection is by appointment only with the museum curator. For information, contact the museum through our Contact Us page. |
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| Allen Sisters Photograph,
Deerfield, Massachusetts, c. 1914 This photograph, a carefully staged scene complete with "colonial" clothing, is characteristic of the romanticized view of the past offered by the Deerfield sisters Frances S. Allen (1854-1941) and Mary E. Allen (1858-1941) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. |
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 Winter Morning, Allen Sisters, c. 1900. |
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