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"Main Street from Arms's Store"

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Stereoscopic photographs gave the illusion of three dimensions and were quite popular in the 19th century after their invention in the early 1850s. This photograph of Main Street in Greenfield, Massachusetts, shows the street on a typical summer day. Tall American elms shade the packed dirt street. Horses harnessed into buggies and wagons await their owners' returns. To the right, a street vendor's table waits for customers. Benjamin F. Popkins, the photographer, came to Greenfield in 1847, where he opened a daguerreotype studio at the corner of Main and Federal Streets. He lived there until the early 1850s, when he moved to Georgia, but returned to Greenfield around 1870 and reopened his studio at his old address. He remained there until he went out of business in 1892. He died in 1905, aged 82.

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