Post Office, Sachem Head, Conn. 43.

Post Office, Sachem Head, Conn. 43.

People pose on the stacked front porches of a simple Victorian house on a summer day. 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. Signs identify this as the Post Office and a gas stop in Sachem's Head, a wealthy summer community on the shoreline at Guilford, CT. The Eastern photographer has likely asked some of the people available to come out and stand for the picture. A younger woman in a World War I era dress and a child pose on ther lower porch, while an older woman in an earlier, long dress stands on the porch above. A large hammock is strung up between the wall and the porch eave. A sign for "Gasoline" hangs from the far end of the porch, although no pump is visible.