Mather Block, Windsor Locks, Conn. 19.

Mather Block, Windsor Locks, Conn. 19.

View of several blocks of late 19th and early 20th century masonry commercial buildings on a downtown street, with trolley and railroad tracks opposite. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. A gaggle of young boys, men and merchants in aprons,sort out onto thesidewalk to pose for the Eastern photographer. The large commercial buildings loom above them, without trees to soften their lines, suggesting a spate of rapid urbanization in recent decades. The harsh feeling is enhanced by the presence of the trolley and railroad lines opposite, and their accompanying electric poles and lines. Both would have connected Windsor Locks to downtown Hartford. The rail line was part of the New Haven to Springfield, Massachusetts system run by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company. Windsor Locks factories producing paper and novelty fibers were also located along this line, farther down Main Street. The bakery at the far left has a large painted sign for Kolb's Pan Dandy Bread.