This photograph was taken in Pittsfield, Maine, sometime in the second half of the 19th century.
(Click for bigness--the detail is excellent.)
I wish I knew more about her, but as is so often the case with photographs such as this, it bears no information about the sitter.
Isn't it wonderful that she chose to have her knitting in hand for a formal studio photograph?
I haven't been able to find any information about a photographer named Howe in Pittsfield, Maine. I suspect he he may have been an itinerant photographer, traveling from town to town.
For another early knitter who chose to be captured knitting, see this earlier entry.