Glimpses of Annie Powell at work, July 29, 1903
First on the scene. Annie Powell and husband John were the first photographers on the scene after a an explosives accident .8 mile from their south Lowell home. Annie, then 44, appears in the background of six images taken that day. It was cloudy and rainy. At left, we see Annie with a photographer’s umbrella staked to the ground to protect her equipment. To her right are likely her neighbors and relatives, brother-in-law Wright Whiteley, then 51, and his daughter, Emma, then 13.
Credit: Tewksbury Public Library (TPL)
Scoping out a scene. Powell, with equipment around her waist, walks from her camera and tripod. In today’s dollars, the Universal brand camera she owned manufactured by Rochester Optical Company would have cost from $1,000 to $2,000. This is likely the camera she used as she monopolized Lowell municipal photography until about 1942.
Credit: TPL
The accident report to the 1903 Tewksbury Board of Selectmen mentions this first photo taken after the explosion.
The credit to Henry J. Fay is deceptive. He was a 23-year-old teamster—his horses and wagon seem to be in many of the explosion images—he was not a professional photographer. It seems he was also an entrepreneur collecting others' images to sell to the report committee.
We believe Annie, a master of drama in much of her work, carefully staged and retouched this scene.
It’s my thought that Annie, a Calvinist, believed in the importance of the afterlife and that death was predetermined. My view is that she carefully constructed this scene of destruction and carnage around it. Can you see the manual placement of straw boater hats, possibly representing lost souls, including on the bicycle handlebar? Can you see a shadowy man looking down which in other photos of hers we interpret to be somebody consulting a list of the predetermined?
Finally, a close analysis of the plumes of smoke show her common retouching techniques to add depth to the composition.
Credit: TPL
Another view of Annie at work. This popular souvenir postcard, below, from 1903 shows Annie and a man (possibly husband John) to the right of the wagon in the background.
Credit: by Annie Powell Collection
Who took these candids of Annie at work? The postcards and Tewksbury collection photos are uncredited or miscredited. But we know there were two other professional photographers on the scene competing to sell to Boston newspapers and postcard publishers: John Marion (1860- pre 1937) and Costillia L. Smith (1827-1905). It's intriguing to think that Smith, then 73, took the photos. This would make this a the early 1900s and a unique instance of a woman photographer at work taking pictures of another woman photographer at work.
Seven years after the explosion, the Lowell Sun noted that the Riverside School rocked on its foundation but survived. We think it’s proper that the poster is hanging there today.