Main St., South Britain, Conn. 532.

Main St., South Britain, Conn. 532.

View in the center of a rural community, with a line of mature Maple trees overhanging one side of the dirt street and houses and a post office on the other. 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 Eastern photographer has paused in his travels to capture this quiet summertime scene of a small town center in western Connecticut. His composition takes in the sinuous lines of a beautiful tree seen agains thte sky at center. As they often were in rural New England, the community's Post Office is housed in a repurposed building in a neighborhood of homes and perhaps other retail establishments, and shares its lot with a small gas stop: "D.L. Condon('s)/ Authorized Distributor" of "Socony Gasoline and Motor Oil/ Standard Oil Co. of New York". A gas pump stands outside in the pull-off in front of the building. Inside, Puritan All Ginger Ale is for sale, with the suggestion "Order a Case Now".