front
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.

label levels:

The Connecticut Valley Street Railway (the "trolley") offered fast, cheap, and regular transportation to country people. The small, quiet open-air cars running outside large cities began re-shaping country space. Farm areas that had never known railroad service discovered that they might have the services of a "car line." The fares, which were one-fifth the cost of the railroad, were affordable. Trolley lines connected even country towns and villages to a growing transportation network that had not been around a generation earlier. In the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, where this photograph was taken, the trolley helped tourism and brought a steady stream of customers for the Arts and Crafts Movement in town.

top of page