This picture from 1895 shows Miss Lucy W. Lee and her class standing before the Deerfield, Massachusetts, Mill River School, located on what is now Conway Road (Route 116). Miss Lee began teaching in 1894, after her graduation from the Westfield, Massachusetts, Normal School- a teacher training school. She worked in Deerfield until 1913. During World War I, half of the one-room schools were closed to save fuel, and the other half were run with double sessions. The Mill River School, never large, was eventually folded into a unified school system by the early 1920s, part of a trend across the state to unify schools with classes organized by grades. Deerfield closed its last one-room school, in West Deerfield, in 1933.

This photograph comes from the Howes Brothers collection. They were based in Ashfield, Massachusetts, and created more than 20,000 images of New England rural life from 1890 to around 1910, offering a glimpse into the lives of people rarely visible in history.