Photographers Frances and Mary Allen of Deerfield, Massachusetts, sought out certain types for character studies. Interesting countenances and the ability to pose unselfconsciously were required of all their models. Farm hand Dennis Burnett was agreeable to having his picture taken and posed fishing at the river’s edge. The Allen sisters were unique not only in being female photographers, but also for taking artistic, rather than documentary, photos.  They worked during the national Colonial Revival movement (begun in the 1880s) when many in an increasingly industrial world thought longingly of earlier, and to their minds, simpler times.