Chansonetta Stanley Emmons Part of the talented Kingfield family

by James Nalley

In the late 19th century, a Kingfield-born woman who studied art and painting went into photography, as one of the relatively few women in this burgeoning field. What made her more unique was that she depicted scenes of domestic life, especially in rural northern New England. After honing her skills, she eventually produced captivating pictures of people at work, families at home, children at play, and farmers in Maine and other parts of the country. Although she considered herself as sympathetic to the poor and uneducated, she lived a comfortable life as an old-fashioned Victorian lady, due to the ongoing financial support of her twin brothers, Francis and Freelan Stanley. Although the brothers made a for- tune (in the millions) from the invention and manufacture of photographic plates, they are best known as the inventors of the Stanley Steamer (the popular steambased automobiles from 1902–1924).

Chansonetta Stanley Emmons was born on December 30, 1858, in Kingfield. The only daughter of Apphia and Solomon Stanley, she was nicknamed “Netta,” since her French-inspired name (meaning “little song”) was too difficult for some people to pronounce. According to the article “The Life and Photographs of Chansonetta Stanley Emmons” (1977) by Marius Peladeau in Maine Antique Digest, “Apphia died when Chansonetta was only 16. After being educated in a one-room schoolhouse on Riverside Street near her home, she enrolled in the Western State Normal School in Farmington. However, upon completing her studies as a teacher, she quickly discovered that her love of art far outweighed her desire to become an ordinary schoolteacher.”

Accordingly, Netta left Farmington and moved to Boston, where she studied art with various artists such as J.G. Enneking and J.G Brown. She also met James Nathaniel Whitman, whom she married in February 1887 in Lewiston, Maine. In 1891, Netta gave birth to her only child, Dorothy Stanley Emmons, who would go on to become an accomplished painter, illustrator, and author. Although Whitman was from a well-established New England family, Netta’s brother Freelan felt that her family’s home was too small, after which he bought them a large house in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1895. This became the setting for many of her early photographs of home and family life.

In 1898, James died of blood poi- soning at the age of 41, forcing Netta and Dorothy to leave Dorchester and move to Newton, Massachusetts. There, she raised seven-year-old Dorothy on her own. It was at that time that Netta used photography to supplement her income. As stated in her biographical article (2005) by the Dorchester Atheneum, Netta “actively participated in photographic competitions, camera club exhibitions, and lectures that featured her photography reproduced as hand-colored glass lantern slides.” These slides were projected through the so-called “magic lantern,” which was an early slide projector that used pictures, paintings, and photographs on transparent plates as well as different lenses and light sources to present the colored images on a screen.

According to the article “Chansonetta Stanley Emmons: Staging the Past” (2022) by the Maine Memory Network, “In comparison to today’s candid digi- tal snapshots, photography in the glassplate era required extensive staging and patience. Chansonneta set her subjects in domestic interiors and agricultural landscapes, posing them in performative scenes reminiscent of 17th-century paintings.” Meanwhile, Dorothy became Netta’s constant companion, assistant, and frequent subject of her photographs, all under the constant financial support of her wealthy brothers. With such support and without being bound to commissions like commercial/professional photographers, Netta and Dorothy freely traveled the country and exhibited the glass lantern slides, all handpainted to project the colored images. According to the Maine Antique Digest, “Among her most noted pictures are those of rural people, including African Americans, in Charleston, South Carolina, taken in the 1920s.” Moreover, “Although hers was a conservative upbringing, her eye (cont. on page 22)

(cont. from page 21) saw the reality of other situations, e.g., the primitive strength of Maine farming families, and the beauty and dignity of the Southern blacks. At times, there is a hurried look to her approach; spurred possibly by a sense of guilt at the abject poverty. But sympathy there is.”

Ever Netta’s close companion, Dorothy, after graduating from Wellesley College in 1914, returned to be with her mother. After Netta lost her hearing in 1920, Dorothy even conducted the presentations as Netta worked the projector from the back of the room.

On March 18, 1937, Netta died in her sleep at the age of 79. As for her legacy, although her works have been on exhibition by the Maine Historical Society in August 2016, with the most recent one ending in March 2023, the Stanley Museum in Kingfield owns the largest collection of her photographic prints and glass plate negatives in the world. Located on 40 School Street in Kingfield, this museum has assembled a collection of many facets of the Stanley family. According to the museum, “Along with four Stanley Steamer automobiles, equally important are Chansonetta’s photographs depicting turn-of-the-century American life and

Dorothy’s paintings. All these collections illustrate the technical, artistic, social, and economic achievements of the Stanley family, and how these achievements relate to the past, present, and future.”