Timeline
1859
Born Elizabeth Hannah Townend, Meltham, West Yorkshire, England, second oldest of seven children to farm hand Henry and Sarah Senior Townend. She calls herself “Annie” throughout her life. The box camera on the bench shows she was a photographer from her early teenage years.
1875
Annie works in Meltham textile mill and completes six years of school.
1880
Annie marries John Powell, mill worker and former farm apprentice. They have no children. At left, is the marriage certificate, stating that John is a weaver and Annie is unemployed. It is suspected she was also a weaver as well.
1881
The Powells purchase a photography studio setup, most likely at a neighbor’s bankruptcy auction. They become partners in a new enterprise called the Studio of John Powell.
1891
Annie travels ahead of her husband, accompanied by a law-skirting uncle who is evading imprisonment for theft in his home country of Britain. Her sister and brother-in-law, Mary Ann and Wright Whiteley, migrated earlier to Lowell to work as weavers and entrepreneurs, secured photo work for Annie shooting souvenir photographs for Lowell’s Proprietors of Locks and Canals (PLC). When John Powell arrived in 1892, they formed the Powell & Whiteley photo studio two miles south of Lowell’s business district. The photo at the left was taken of Annie before she left England at age 31.
1895
The Powell & Whiteley studio is dissolved and Powell Studio, also known as the Columbia Studio, opens in same building. At the time, the term “Columbia” was often used as another word for America. The 1899 cabinet card at left acknowledges Annie (Elizabeth) in the partnership. The card features a blown up, intermingled “J” and “E,” possibly for John and Elizabeth, blown up in the lower left.
1896-1906
The Powells buy house at nearby 55 S. Whipple St. and move the photo studio. Annie’s siblings and their families settle a block away on Andrews St. The ad at left ran several times in the Lowell City Directory. It was an unusual choice to include a woman in the photo and was probably not intended to look socially progressive. It is more likely that it was a marketing consideration as Annie’s talents outweighed those of her husband, John.
1904-1942
Annie takes souvenir, municipal and documentary photos for postcard publishers, PLC, Lowell City Engineers, and the Housing Authority using a large-format, fully manual 8x10 camera. She then develops them in the studio.
1899-1905
The photo studio business declines and the contract with Lowell Textile School, predecessor of UMass Lowell (from its first class of 1899 to about 1905). John Powell is at the far left and Annie Powell is seated in a white dress in this circa 1903 portrait with teachers and students.
1906
Powells lose their mortgage and advertise a sale of their equipment. They leave their house and business. Wright Whiteley, to whom they likely owned money, assumes ownership of the property.
1907-1917
John and Annie live separately, she may have lived with siblings before moving to her own tenement room around 1912. John ventures into various businesses, settling on eyeglass fitting. Annie’s photo career is discovered by sleuthing and going beyond census and business records, ads, and newspaper reports. For instance, in her church records, at left, she lists herself as head of a household which includes her two unmarried sisters.
1912
She provides many photos to The Record of a City by Rev. George Kenngott, an historically important social critique of living conditions of Lowell’s poor.
1909-1922
Annie makes a series of Portuguese-American photos at Appleton Mill and Lowell’s Back Central neighborhood. They are stored as the Camara Collection at UMass Lowell and Kheel Center at Cornell University and are historically, artistically and culturally significant.
1928
John dies of a stomach ulcer at 71. In the months preceding, Annie, whose Calvinist religion believed in predestination, takes several photos of the cemetery down the street from John’s store. As in other photos in her work, there seem to be symbols of death and afterlife. In our view, this man, her City Engineers chauffeur, may have been posed as an angel or undertaker on the living side of the cemetery fence. Significantly, he is just below an obelisk with a cross.
1932
Annie’s oldest sister, Mary Ann Whiteley, commits suicide, and Annie retires from a three decade career documenting construction sites for City Engineers.
1939-1942
Annie, now in her early 80s, takes photographs for the Housing Authority, showing her distinctive style by choreographing of groups of children for each photo. Her unique handwriting is apparent on the verso (or backs) of some of the images, as well as three unexplained initials she has used before: A.C.G. These images, owned by UMass Lowell Center for Lowell History, are the final photographs we attribute to her hand.
1952
Annie succumbs to bronchopneumonia at age 92. Annie and John are buried in an unmarked family plot at Edson Cemetery, a few steps from the grave of Jack Kerouac. This Lowell Sun feature two years earlier showed her healthy and living with her beloved niece, Annie Wood Devno.
2021
Independent historian Bernie Zelitch contacts Annie Powell descendants and helps identify her final effects. Some photos have connections with other collections, including style, technique, and handwriting. At left is one of the photographs she saved. Pictured is Annie outside she and Annie Wood Devno’s house along with her youngest sister Clara.
2023
In 2023, the nonprofit by Annie Powell is forrmed with the mission to preserve and promote the legacy of Annie Powell.