Ned Jilton II: Frances Benjamin Johnston was America's first female photojournalist

Photojournalism was born during the Civil War. Photographers like Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O'Sullivan drove wagons converted into rolling darkrooms, following the armies to photograph the aftermath of battles. They also established studios to photograph influential people of the day.Also born during the Civil War was the woman who would become America's first female photojournalist.Frances Benjamin Johnston was born on Jan. 15, 1864, in the newly created state of West Virginia. Shortly after the end of the war, the family moved to Washington, D.C., where her father got a job with the federal government as an assistant bookkeeper in the Treasury Department.Johnston grew up in the nation's capital and was educated privately, graduating from Notre Dame of Maryland Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies before heading to Paris to study art at the Academie Julian.Johnston was writing stories for area periodicals when a friend of the family, George Eastman of Eastman Kodak fame, gave her her first camera. She drew on her family's Washington, D.C., connections to receive training in photography and darkroom techniques from Thomas Smillie, director of photography at the Smithsonian. She then worked for a time with the Eastman Kodak Company.In 1889, her first major article, "Uncle Sam's Money" documenting how money was made, was published. She later did a series about the White House before heading to Pennsylvania, where she photographed boys sifting slate from coal in the Kohinoor Mines. In 1894, she opened her own studio in Washington, D.C., and the Washington Times newspaper declared her "the only lady in the business of photography in the city."She photographed many prominent people of the day including Susan B. Anthony, Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver. Carver called Johnston the "pluckiest woman I ever saw." She also did the famous photos of President Theodore Roosevelt's children with their pet pony at the White House.One of her best-known photos, at that time at least, was not one of the famous people she photographed — it was of her. Johnston did a self-portrait called "New Woman" showing her sitting with her skirt hiked up to her knees, holding a stein of beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. The then somewhat scandalous photo was to illustrate things changing for women.Recognizing her role in advancing women's place in the world, Johnston said, "It is another pet theory with me that there are great possibilities in photography as a profitable and pleasant occupation for women, and I feel that my success helps to demonstrate this, and it is for this reason that I am glad to have other women know of my work."Johnston's reputation as a photographer grew to the point that she was the first woman to be appointed as the official White House photographer.It was a title she held through five administrations — Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. In fact, she took the last photo of McKinley just before he was assassinated at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. She also photographed the signing of the peace treaty that ended the Spanish-American War.When not working at the White House or in her studio, Johnston began documenting conditions in Virginia. She was first commissioned to photograph the students and buildings of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia. From there she moved on to photograph the everyday history of the South, doing a series of photographs around the area of Fredericksburg, Virginia.Her work impressed the administration at the University of Virginia, and they hired her to document the campus. This work caught the attention the states of North Carolina and Louisiana, which then hired her to document their architectural history.In 1935, Johnston set out on a year-long project to document the historic structures of the Colonial Era in Virginia. One year turned into eight as she traveled across the commonwealth photographing sites in all 95 counties in Virginia.Johnston continued to document historic sites across the South. Her efforts to preserve history encouraged Charleston, South Carolina, St. Augustine, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, to pass zoning ordinances to protect historic districts.Speaking of New Orleans, after several years of traveling around the South, Johnston bought a house on Bourbon Street in 1945 and settled down. She lived there until her death in 1952.If you are interested, Johnston's photos can be seen on the Library of Congress website. However, I hope you have time and patience. There are several catalogs of her photographs, and when I searched one for photos from Virginia, the results yielded almost 4,000 hits. Her volume of work is incredibly impressive, especially when you consider she shot many of her photos with view cameras, one photo per film holder, or with an early roll film camera, 12 shots per roll.Ned Jilton II is a photographer, history lover and columnist. You can contact him at ndjphoto@aol.com.