The effect of “lady photographer”, part 2 of 4

“LADY PHOTOGRAPHER LOCATES HERE”

 

Isn’t it great that Bloomington, Indiana has a lady photographer?

Last time we saw the testimonial by Mrs. F.G. Harris for Peplac. The detailed description of her in that ad is similar to descriptions of lady photographers elsewhere, like the one in the puff piece about Iva M. Roach above. She is “highly recommended” having had studios in various locations (which may or may not be true), as well as other professional and artistic experience. (Iva Roach was quite a fascinating character, and I highly recommended Lee’s podcast episode about her.) These kinds of descriptions are fairly common, and they are recognizable as a type even today. Here’s another one several years earlier for Juno B. Shane in Lawrence, Kansas

 

As the article says, “it is natural to expect there to be lady photographers.”  (Juno B. Shane was part of a family of photographers, and her father was one of the first photographers in Lawrence. Her mother and brother were both involved in the family business, which Juno took over along with her husband. Juno’s sister Myrtle studied photography at the same school as Juno did, but never worked as a photographer. Myrtle has her own very interesting story as well. As before, go check out Lee’s podcast episode about the Shanes.)

In addition to these very positive profiles of women photographers, there are many mentions of lady photographers doing their work. This one of Olive Coffman of Lacon, Illinois is more detailed than most:

The description of Miss Coffman as “Lacon’s lady photographer” is fairly typical in associating her with the town. (This is true of male photographers as well.)

There are also a variety of articles about nationally prominent women photographers, like this one about Jessie Tarbox Beals with some great photos of her at work, and this one about how a “snapshot” (which was just a non-studio photograph) by Frances Benjamin Johnston of President McKinley was used as the basis for a statue of him after he was assassinated.  Both of those articles use the phrase lady photographer.

Not all of these articles about lady photographers mention the name of the photographer, for example this article from Pratt, Kansas:

 

 

From our research, it seems highly likely that this lady photographer is Rosa Vreeland, one of our favorite EWAPs. Again, go check out Lee’s podcast episode about “the extraordinary Mrs. Vreeland.” (Are you seeing a pattern here?)

Finally, for this post, there are other news stories where lady photographer is a descriptor of the person in a non-work context, like this one from Newman, California, about Clara Smith Howell who is visiting town.