Back in 2017, Chris and I bought a Carte de Visite (CDV) by an Early PICT, Mrs. Mary “Lizzie” Lawton, a woman who did business as “Mrs. A. J. Lawton” in Willimantic, Connecticut. I remember how fun it was to run across this old photo with a woman photographer’s name clearly printed on the back after spending lots of time searching through a dusty box of old photos in the antique store that day.
Anyway, here’s that photo by Mrs. Lawton we found in 2017:
(from McIntyre-Culy collection)
(from McIntyre-Culy collection)
But of course finding a photo by an early artisan woman photographer is really just the starting point for the Photograph, Pistols & Parasols project. Next up is always the hunt to try to find out more about the early woman artisan photographer herself.
When I gave my talk at the Manchester library last month, I shared with the audience the information that Chris and I had originally uncovered about Mrs. Lawton back in 2017 after we bought that CDV. Namely, we found evidence that suggested her husband, Andrew J. Lawton, had actually been a photographer first. We based that on the fact that Andrew is listed in the 1870 census as a photographer, while his wife, Mary “Lizzie” Lawton, has no occupation listed in that same census.
We had also discovered in that initial research that by 1873 Mrs. A.J. Lawton was a photographer in Willimantic. She was listed in the Photographers list in the Willimantic directory that year. Andrew J. Lawton was not listed as a photographer in that directory.
However, what’s fun about doing this research is that you never know what you might find next. ..
You see, when we did our first round of research on Mrs. Lawton back in 2017, there weren’t that many directories that included Willimantic available online. But Chris recently discovered some directories that have business information from all over CT. And the 1865 directory of businesses in CT provides data pushes Mrs. Lawton’s career as a photographer back to the 1860s:
Note that Andrew Lawton is NOT a photographer in that list. However, tax records from that same year (1865) show Andrew Lawton paying taxes as a photographer. So, our new theory: Mrs. A.J. Lawton was actually the photographer in the family running the photography business, but perhaps tax rolls at that time required a man to be listed as the tax payer. That would explain why Mr. Lawton shows up as a photographer in tax roll lists, even if it was his wife who was always the photographer.
Therefore, despite the occupation listed for Andrew Lawton on the 1870 census, it now seems likely that he was never really a working photographer at all.
In any case, since we also found that Mrs. A.J. Lawton was active as a photographer in Willimantic until 1884, it now appears her career spanned ~20 years – or maybe even more, directories prior to 1865 have yet to be found (by us).
Anyway, as I mentioned above, I find the serendipity when doing this research to be part of the fun — i.e., you just never know what additional information might come to light, or at least become available online, at some point.
Of course, getting to antique stores and sorting through dusty boxes of old photos can still, by itself, be very rewarding. For example, after my talk last month we wound up in an antique store here in Connecticut going through another dusty box of old photos for sale. Imagine my delight when one of the first photos I found in that box was by none other than Mrs. A. J. Lawton:
(from McIntyre-Culy collection)
We were able to buy 2 copies of that same photo, actually — proof of one of the advantages of a CDV format — introduced in the 1860s — over the original daguerreotype format. Namely, photographic technology that produced the CDV allowed for the possibility of getting multiple copies of the same photo. Unfortunately, neither copy of this photo we found was in good shape, both were very faded, so I’ve done what I could on the computer to clean up that image a little.
The back of these new-to-us CDVs by Mrs. Lawton is quite nice, though. See what you think:
(from McIntyre-Culy collection)
By the way, the back of the CDVs also give her studio address. Based on that, the ones that we bought recently are actually older than the one we bought back in 2017. I.e., Mrs. Lawton’s studio is located on Main Street according to the 1865 directory, and that is on the back of the ones we purchased in 2025. Her studio address in the 1873 directory lists her studio as being on Union street, and that is the address on the back of the CDV we bought in 2017.
Among the mysteries that still remain to figure out for Mary “Lizzie” Lawton is when she retired and when she died. In 1895 she’s a widow who has been living in Willimantic; that year, thought, she moves to New Haven to live with her son Edgar and his wife. By then her business had long since been closed: Mrs. A. J. Lawton stops being included in the list of Photographers in Willimantic around 1884.
In the 1900 U.S. Census, Mary Lawton is still living with her son Edgar and his family in New Haven. According to the CT registry of deaths, there’s a Mary Lawton who dies in New Haven in 1901; if that’s the same woman who was the photographer in Willimantic from the 1860s – 1884, then she would have been only 57 when she died.
However, we haven’t been able to prove conclusively that the Mary Lawton who ran the “Mrs. A. J. Lawton” studio in Williamantic for 20 years is indeed the Mary Lawton who died in New Haven in 1901.
But we might figure it out some day in the future; after all, we stumble upon new information about the past all the time. 😉
