Harriette Merrifield Forbes (1856-1951) was a Worcester author and historian. From 1887 to 1945, she photographed seventeenth and eighteenth century structures throughout central and eastern Massachusetts. Her images, preserved as 853 negatives (mostly glass plate negatives), have been digitized and cataloged as part of a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
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Thumbnail images have been indexed by place, name, and subject. View the thumbnails by clicking on the scan number available on the index pages. Higher resolution (300 dpi scans) of the negatives are available. Learn about obtaining digital images for more information.
This assembly of glass plate negatives is part of a larger collection of Forbes' papers which reflects her work as an historian of early New England. The negatives have also been included in an online exhibition of Architectural Resources at AAS.
Harriette Merrifield Forbes was the widow of Judge William Trowbridge Forbes (1850-1931) and the mother of novelist Esther Forbes (1891-1967). A capable researcher, she wrote New England Diaries, 1602-1800: A Descriptive Catalogue of Diaries, Orderly Books and Sea Journals (Topsfield, Mass.: The Perkins Press, 1923), and Gravestones of Early New England and the Men Who Made Them (Boston: The Riverside Press for Houghton Mifflin, 1927).