86 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • MARCH 2020
REAR VIEW
FRANCES BENJAMIN JOHNSTON
WHAT A WOMAN CAN DO
BY ANNIE WILKINSON
Before tiny phones made point-andclick
photos a no-brainer, a few artists
shouldered bulky equipment to
demonstrate their skill. But President
Theodore Roosevelt was suspicious,
even telling his children to run away
from anyone approaching them with
a camera.
Frances Benjamin Johnston earned his
trust and he became the fi rst president
to be largely photographed. She photographed
his daughter Alice Roosevelt
with her pony, as a debutante, and at
her wedding, and was allowed to sell
portraits of Alice.
Johnston proved that a woman could
master photography. She could also
write. She could draw. She could paint.
She could manage a successful business.
She could — and did — write a published
article, “What A Woman Can Do With
A Camera.”
And, in 1930, she became the fi rst woman
exhibiting photos at the Library
of Congress. During her 60 years as
a photojournalist and portrait, architectural,
and landscape photographer,
she focused on Long Island’s famous
Gold Coast, South Shore, and East End
estates.
BLAZING TRAILS
Born in 1864, she learned to capture
sights that no longer exist except on
her fi lm, showing how people beautifi ed
land and inhabited structures, from log
cabins to classrooms to mansions.
Much of her drive can be attributed
to her politically well-connected parents’
encouragement. Her mother, one
writer said, “acted as if equal rights for
women were already a fait accompli,”
and was a successful Washington, D.C.
journalist; her father was head bookkeeper
in the Treasury Department.
They praised her talent, supporting
her art study in Paris in 1884 when she
was 20. In 1884, she returned home,
determined to support herself as a
magazine illustrator and freelance
photographer, a female in a male-dominated
profession.
Self-portrait of Frances Benjamin Johnston posing as an independent new
woman in her studio, surrounded by photographs of men. (Library of Congress)
Victorian-era men believed that women
could not handle weighty fi eld cameras,
aff ord expensive supplies and assistants,
and were less talented. Johnston
persevered, becoming the fi rst woman
to join the Washington, D.C. camera
club. She processed her own glass
negatives and in 1892 gained national
recognition for mixing magnesium and
potash to illuminate Mammoth Cave.
She climbed onto boxcars and trucks
to get the best shot.
In 1897, The New York Times ran her fullpage
spread of Mrs. Grover Cleveland
and Ladies’ Home Journal published her
article encouraging women to support
themselves with photography. And yet,
by 1898 there were only three women
photographers in New York City. As one
of the fi rst photojournalists, she shot
images to run with her articles.
In 1909, she had the idea of using electric
spotlights to light the inside of New
York City’s New Theatre. She developed
what she called “color photo-transparencies,”
similar to large slides that let
light through. In Europe, she learned
autochrome, an early color process. Her
successful portraiture studio attracted
clients such as Mark Twain and dance
pioneer Isadora Duncan, and several
administrations appointed her White
House photographer.
As women campaigned to secure the
vote and defy domesticity, she photographed
suff rage activist Susan B.
Anthony and arranged exhibits by
American female artists. She fl outed
tradition, photographing herself
dressed as a man. In 1896, another
self-portrait showed her holding a beer
stein and smoking a cigarette, skirt
hiked up almost to her knees.
She never married, but socialized with
other bohemians, traveled unescorted,
and showed interest in nudes. She lived
and worked with rising photographer
Mattie Edwards Hewitt between 1913
and 1917 in New York, Johnston taking
most of the photos and Hewitt doing
the printing. They documented estates
and gardens of the wealthy, such as Cold
Spring Harbor’s Burrwood, Roslyn
Harbor’s Willowmere, Glen Cove’s Pratt
estates, East Hampton’s Grey Gardens,
and others.
The letters the two exchanged reveal endearments
such as, “Ah, I love you better
than ever you know.” Some scholars call
these friendly communications, others
say they are rooted in physicality, “a clue
to a greater, if submerged, lesbian subculture,”
writes Bettina Berch in her University
of Virginia biography of Johnston.
PRESERVING THE PALACES
In the late 1920s, Johnston documented
Southern architecture and gardens,
describing the work as having great
“urgency.”
She wrote, “Many places are in a state
of great dilapidation, with walls crumbing,
roofs falling in, occupied by the
poorest of the poor — tenants usually
of indiff erent owners; or by contrast
more completely destroyed by so-called
‘improvements.’”
Because of her dedication, society can
view many antebellum structures that
were later razed. She kept exhibiting,
publishing books and taking pictures;
even into her 80s, she would lie on her
back on a hard fl oor to get the right angle.
She fell in love with the South, and
moved to New Orleans around 1945; several
years later she donated some 20,000
prints, including her photojournalism
pieces, to the Library of Congress.
She passed away in 1952 at age 88.
“Johnston proved that a woman
could master photography.”
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