1930s WOMAN PHOTOGRAPHER PHOTO ALBUM ORANGE MASSACHUSETTS 400+ SNAPSHOTS 1936 FLOOD HAMPTON BEACH AIRMEET
Item #1682
Wonderful 1930s vernacular snapshot album kept by Esther Harrington, a prolific amateur woman photographer associated with Worcester and Orange, Massachusetts. The album begins with a charming hand-lettered poem:
“Esther has a little box
and how she makes it click!
She’s taken many thousand shots…”
The album contains over 400 original snapshots of various sizes, mounted with corner tabs on black album pages. The album measures about 10" x 13" and is bound in red covers stamped “PHOTOGRAPHS.” Around 20 photographs are missing, but the album remains very full and visually rich.
A major strength of the album is that Esther is not just an anonymous snapshot taker. Several pages help identify her as a serious amateur photographer. One newspaper clipping reproduces her “picturesque study of a lone pine,” credited to Miss Esther Harrington of 169 Pleasant Street, Worcester. Another clipping from the Worcester Sunday Telegram, July 11, 1937, reproduces her photograph of four ladies’ slippers, noting that she took the picture while studying a rare woodland growth. These clippings are accompanied by related original photographs of trees, flowers, woods, and natural subjects.
A particularly strong section documents the 1936 flood disaster in Orange, Massachusetts, with original snapshots and newspaper clippings showing flooded streets, railroad tracks, ice damage, damaged buildings, bridges, and aftermath views. Later photographs show the telephone building after the water receded, tracks and sandbags used during the flood, new river bridge construction in Orange, and the completed bridge with the new fire station visible.
There is also an excellent Hampton Beach, New Hampshire section, including a blue Hampton Beach pennant, July 4th beach scenes, a sailboat regatta, women at the beach, the new state bathhouse, roof garden, women’s dressing room, and a striking candid photograph captioned “Bill Elliott, Hampton’s Singing Cop (a Major Bowes contest winner).”
Other sections include Cape Cod, Worcester, Lake Singletary, Bristol, Rhode Island, Cumberland Hill, Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay, and Orange Airport. The airport pages include photographs from an airmeet at Orange Airport in May 1938, with planes, crowds, and Esther herself posed at the field.
The album also includes theatrical and social material, photographs from a dress rehearsal of “I Dream of Thee” at the Y.M.C.A., April 1938, Republican B.P.W. women outing material, office/workplace scenes, bird photographs, pets, children, gardens, apple packing, Christmas decorations, humorous captions, and many named friends and relatives.
The tone of the album is especially appealing because Esther’s role as a photographer is made explicit from the opening poem and reinforced by the published newspaper clippings. This is more than a standard family album—it is a self-conscious record of a woman with a camera documenting local events, travel, nature, theater, weather disasters, and everyday New England life.
Condition: album shows wear to the covers and spine, with rubbing, edge wear, and some weakness along the binding. Photographs are held with corner tabs. About 20 images are missing. Some pages show normal handling wear, but the album is intact enough to handle carefully and the contents remain strong.
A terrific 1930s woman photographer snapshot album with Orange, Massachusetts flood content, Hampton Beach material, Orange Airport airmeet photographs, published examples of Esther Harrington’s photography, New England travel, theater, local history, humor, and strong vernacular photography throughout.
Price: $650.00