To celebrate Annie’s work in and around Lowell, we’ve launched the 100 Posters Project. We are currently in the process of distributing 100 posters to local businesses, nonprofits and government agencies that now occupy buildings or have addresses on streets that Annie photographed one-hundred years ago. Our goal is to show how Lowell neighborhoods appeared in Annie’s time in relation to Lowell today.
Poster 2 of 100
Automobilists Look Out
Corner Suffolk & Market Streets, October 23, 1917
In 1917, kids played in the street. Drivers played largely without rules. Annie would have known tragedies from those conditions when she snapped this photo. It’s likely, she arranged for the car to be approaching the sign on the utility post: AUTOMOBILISTS: LOOK OUT FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN.
Later in the darkroom, she double-exposed the three legs crossing the street to look like apparitions. Did this memorialize a fatality that occurred on that spot? Or was it a warning of what could happen? At the bottom, you can see the blow-up images of these details.
Images like this one may tell us Annie had an affection for children and through her art, pleaded to see them protected.
This site is near the location of today’s Panela Restaurant, 525 Market St.
Source: Lowell National Historical Park, Proprietors of Locks and Canals Collection
