Maple St., Hazardville, Conn. 2.

Maple St., Hazardville, Conn. 2.

Summer time view of a well-shaded residential street with mid-19th century houses. 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. The view shows a typical residential neighborhood in small town New England, before the onslaught of the automobile era. During his drives through the northeast states, the Eastern photographer would have been aware of the physical changes afoot as the gas-powered engine replaced horse-drawn travel, and might have wanted to document the disappearing scene. Soon streets such as this would be widened and their trees removed, paved with macadam, bordered by curbs, edged with sidewalks and strung with electric utility lines and poles.