Capturing a bygone era

Last-minute Christmas shoppers might want to give the Maine State Archives in Augusta a ring for a gift that is different, distinctive and a piece of old-time Maine.

The archives is selling copies of six old photographs by George W. French, part of a vast collection of 5,000 photos by French that is held by the archives.

French didn’t really take his photos all that long ago — most of them date from the late 1930s — but he captures a time and place that seem very far away indeed.

Two boys in straw hats, fishing poles in hand, perch on a fence looking just like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Two old men play checkers on the front step of the general store. Kids in shorts and bare feet walk up a lane with fishing boats in the background in Stonington.

French made the pictures when he worked for the Maine Development Commission. He was the first official state promotional photographer. He worked to make his scenes look appealing, and many photographs were used on calendars and greeting cards.

French, a native of Kezar Falls, lived from 1882 to 1970. He graduated from Bates College, and taught and coached at Deerfield and Monson academies before turning to photography.

The archives has more of French’s work on display in its lobby, calling the photos “Main Street Yesterdays.”

Here we see Freeport before the dawn of the shopping outlets. The main street is shaded by towering elm trees, and fine old Victorian homes grace what is now the main route to L.L. Bean.

Another photo shows the sleepy village of Flagstaff before it was drowned by the rising waters of man-made Flagstaff Lake.

A positively bucolic scene shows the pleasant town green in front of an old church in North Bridgton.

Apparently, French preferred to snap his pictures when there weren’t cars or wagons or people cluttering up the view. The result is a timeless, long-ago quality to the images.

“Christmas is a nostalgic period when people are looking back to white Christmases and sleigh bells,” said James Henderson, director of the Maine State Archives, in explaining the photos’ appropriateness to the season.

“People who love to have images of Maine in days gone by have to love this stuff,” said Roy Wells, chief photographer at the archives, who is responsible for preserving the old photographs and making prints for those who request them.

“They’re getting hotter as people want to remember those times,” said Wells. “He (French) covered the summer camps and kids picking potatoes and people holding giant fish. … It’s an excellent state record generated by a state of Maine photographer.”

People are welcome to browse through the entire collection and request reprints of other French photos than those featured this Christmas, Henderson said. The archives also has collections of photos of Civil War officers from Maine and other topics.

“For quite some time, we’ve wanted to get this photo collection to the public,” said Henderson. “We never quite got to marketing this until this year. This communicates to the public what the archives has in its collection. If this works for these photos, we might expeand it.”

The French photos will continue to be on sale after the holidays.

The prints are nonglossy and black-and-white. An 8-by-10 print costs $9.95. An 11-by-14 print costs $14.95. There is a $2 shipping fee for each photo.

For more information, call the Maine State Archives at 287-5790.