For three of the five sons in the Howes family of Ashfield, Massachusetts, commercial photography offered the chance for a vibrant career in the years after the Civil War (1861-1865). The oldest brother, Alvah, born in 1853, was the first to take up photography sometime in the mid-1880s after working as a farm laborer. He brought his brother Walter into the profession and together they began taking and selling photographs in southern New England and the Hudson Valley.

In 1888 they set up a studio in Turners Falls, Massachusetts, and occasionally employed their youngest brother, George. In the summers Walter and George toured. They settled in a town for a week or more, taking photographs and selling the prints at three for a dollar. Alvah ran the Turners Falls studio, staying there until 1894 when his business collapsed, falling victim to the Depression of 1893. In 1896 Alvah returned to photography and joined his brothers on the road. They took pictures across New England, particularly in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. They specialized in selling affordable, easily produced photographs.

Their work created a record of the lives of ordinary people, many of whom would never have had a formal studio photograph taken. By 1902 the brothers decided to end their touring life. Walter and George moved to other business ventures and the last known photographs by Alvah were taken in 1906 or 1907. Alvah died in Ashfield in 1919, George died in 1925, and Walter in 1945.

The Howes brothers took more than 20,000 images, many of which were restored in the early 1980s. That archive rests at the Historical Society in Ashfield. Reproductions are on microfilm at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and at Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts. In 1981 Pantheon Books published “New England Reflections, 1882-1907: Photographs by the Howes Brothers,” edited by Alan Newman, describing the Howes brothers’ life and work.