White's best work, however, was produced far from the medium's center of gravity, when he lived in the small Ohio town of Newark, supporting himself and his family as a grocery store bookkeeper. His photographs from this time, pastoral odes of a sort, stemmed from a vision nurtured and dependent on the customs and values of small-town life. ...White's intimacy with his subjects - nature, women, and domestic life - allowed him to find sentiment in the commonplace. These women...are embodiments of feminine grace. Neither genre scene nor narrative tableau, White's photograph is a retreat into domesticized nature. (Malcolm Daniel, The Waking Dream, p. 334.)

William T. Utter was a Professor of Ohioan history at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, about six miles from Newark. He was an avid collector of 19th Century pioneer furniture and artifacts. He probably acquired the photograph while searching Central Ohio for art and antiques.