Photographs, Pistols & Parasols

Notes

Information about our article in The Journal:

L. Lee McIntyre and Chris Culy. 2021. “Miss C. Smith: The long career of an independent photographer from Lowell, Massachusetts” in The Journal: New England Journal of Photographic History. 179:20-39.

Our article is listed at the bottom of the cover:

Visit the the Photographic Historical Society of New England’s website for more information on the group, their publications, etc.

***Update Click here to order copies of this issue of The Journal ***

Also, click here to visit the episode notes for my  podcast episode about Miss C Smith. There are sample photos of work from the Miss C Smith Studio on that notes page; you can also  as listen to the entire episode again from that page.

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

*****

Hi everybody and Happy International Women’s Day!

Today I just I have quick announcement to share.

As you know, my husband, Chris, and I have been doing research for this project for the past few years. Along the way, I’ve been sharing the stories we’ve uncovered  – about the lives and careers of early women artisan photographers –  through both this podcast well as through lectures and talks I’ve given all over the world.

But today I’m delighted to announce that Chris and I now have out first published article about these talented women. It’s an article published in The Journal: New England Journal of Photographic History, which is the annual publication of the Photographic Historical Society of New England.

The title of our article is “Miss C. Smith: The long career of an independent photographer from Lowell, Massachusetts”. Listeners may recall I talked about Miss C Smith several years ago on the podcast. Miss C Smith is the name – i.e. the photographer’s “brand” – on the photographs. “Miss C Smith” herself turned out to be a woman named Costillia Smith. Costillia Smith ran the “Miss C Smith” studio by herself for more than 30 years in the late 19th century

In that podcast episode I talked about how the first thing we had to do with “Miss C Smith” was to track down her first name; finding out a lot more about her was even more of a challenge.

However, Chris and I both love a challenge:   we spent a lot of time digging into the records we could get access to online during the pandemic, since the pandemic made it impossible to visit Lowell while we were writing the article. However, we managed to pieced together information about her family as well as more about her career.  We share that in the article, along with many some wonderful examples of photographs from Miss C Smith’s studio that we’ve collected. That includes examples of both cabinet cards as well the smaller form-factor carte-de-visites.

I’ll include information in the episode notes for today on how to buy copies of The Journal direct from the Photographic Historical Society of New England.

Chris and I really want to extended a huge thank you to John Felix and Ron Polito, who are the editors of The Journal, and whose support and encouragement inspired this article. Many thanks to all who put the print version together:  Miss C Smith’s life and career are beautifully presented in the 20-pages dedicated to her in the issue.

As always, look for the espisode notes on my website at p3photographers.net. That’s letter p number 3 photographers.net

You can also follow Photographs, Pistols & Parasols on Facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

Unavoidable delays have kept me from bringing you more episodes recently here on the podcast. Rest assured, though, there are many more women whose stories are just waiting to be told – look for more episodes coming soon!

That’s it for today! Thanks for stopping by! Until next time .. I’m Lee McIntyre and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

*****

Hi everybody and Happy International Women’s Day!

Today I just I have quick announcement to share.

As you know, my husband, Chris, and I have been doing research for this project for the past few years. Along the way, I’ve been sharing the stories about the lives and careers of early women artisan photographers that we’ve uncovered through both this podcast well as through lectures and talks I’ve given all over the world.

But today I’m delight3d to announce that Chris and I now have out first published article about these talent women. It’s an article published in The Journal: New England Journal of Photographic History, which is the annual publication of the Photographic Historical Society of New England.

The title of our article is “Miss C. Smith: The long career of an independent photographer from Lowell, Massachusetts”. Listeners may recall I talked about Miss C Smith several years ago on the podcast. Miss C Smith is the name – i.e. the photographer’s brand” on the photographs, “Miss C Smith” herself turned out to be a woman named Costillia Smith. Costillia Smith ran the “Miss C Smith” studio by herself for more than 30 years in the late 19th century

In that podcast episode I talked about how the first thing we had to sdo with Miss C Smith was to track down her first name; finding out a lot more about her was even more of a challenge. However, Chris and I both love a challenge – we spent a lot of time digging into the records we could get access to online during the panedmic, since the pandemic made it impossible to visit Lowell while we were writing the arcle. However, we managed to pieced together information about her family as well as more about her career, and we share that in the article, along with many some wonderful exmaples of photographes from Miss C Smith’s studio that we’ve collected. That includes both cabinet cards as well the smaller formfactor carte-de-visites.

I’ll include information in the episode notes for today on how to buy copies of The Journal direct from the Photographic HIstorical Society of New England. Chris and I really want to extended a hugh thank you to John Felix and Ron Polito, who ware the editors of the Journal, and whose support and encouragement inspired this article. Many thanks to all who put the print version today – Miss C Smith’s live and career are beautifully presented in thje 20-pages dedicated to her in the issue.

As always, look on on my website at p3photographers.net. That’s letter p number 3 photographers.net

You can also follow Photographs, Pistols & Parasols on Facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

L. Lee McIntyre and Chris Culy. 2021. “Miss C. Smith: The long career of an independent photographer from Lowell, Massachusetts” in

Unavoidable delays have kept me from bringing you more episodes recently here on the podcast. Rest assured, though, there are many more women whose stories are just waiting to be told – look for more episodes coming soon!

That’s it for today! Thanks for stopping by! Until next time .. I’m Lee McIntyre, and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Today we’re finally going to continue our journey to explore the amazing career of Olive Monroe. Since it’s taken a little longer than I’d hope to finish Mrs. Monroe’s story, if you need  to refresh your memory about how this all started, here’s a link to Part 1 of Ollie Monroe’s story.

First, let’s talk a little about her ads. Below we see Mrs. O.H. Monroe’s special deal offered in 1891 to any woman who could show that she voted in an election in Kansas (remember, women had the right to vote long before the U.S. Federal law changed):

Mrs. Monroe was really brilliant at creating eye-catching ads. Here’s an example from later in her career, when she was running a studio with one of her sons. Her use of a photo montage is quite striking and somewhat unusual for the period.

But then, photo montages were something of her specialty. She used some excellent examples in  two photo books she produced when she lived in Elyria, Ohio, in 1903 and 1906:

Among the many photos by Mrs. Monroe in the book we find a photo of Mrs. Monroe herself, pictured on the page with all the prominent business women in town:

Click here to see that full page in the book, which includes not only the photos of the women, but all information about them and their businesses.

2. 1906 book: Lorain County Ohio, her Beautiful Children, Progressive People and Marvelous Development, by Mrs. O. H. Monroe. You can find information here about the book, but there is currently no online copy freely available.  There’s a digital version that has been available in the past behind the paywall at the Ohio Geneological Society Digital Library. If you can find a copy of the book, it has come great images that make you feel like you’ve step back in time into the life of the town.  You’ll even have a chance to “stop by” Mrs. Monroe’s studio, as there are photos of that and other businesses in town.

Also, as I mention in this episode, the  Lorain County Historical Society (@LorainCountyHistoricalSociety)  published a piece about Mrs. Monroe’s 1906 book back in November as part of their #FamilyResearchFriday series. Click here to view their post, which includes a nice example of one of the baby montages by Mrs. Monroe. Mrs. Monroe wrote this book as well as took most of the photos;  as I mention in the episode, 2 of her sons also contributed photos and artwork.

Now, in an odd twist, I happened to notice today that  p.134 of Mrs. Monroe’s 1906 book about Lorain County includes the exact photo montage she uses in 1912 for that ad in the Kansas newspaper shown above! She loved her montages … even the old ones, I guess.

Anyway,  as those books are wonderful, and probably worked extremely well as advertising for not only the town and county in Ohio, but also for Mrs. Monroe’s wonderful photographic work.

However, by far the most memorable advertising gimmick. we found for  Mrs. Monroe actually was for her one of other businesses, namely running a theatre in Elyria, Ohio. Here’s an eye-catching mention of an upcoming giveaway at her theatre in 1907:

Compare that headline to Mrs. Ober-Townes’s 1894 ad that I discussed back in Episode 7, where Mrs. Ober-Towne’s “baby give away” which was just a trick of the typeface in the ad.  Mrs. Monroe, however,  insisted in all interviews right up until the big day that she was actually giving away a baby.

So …  did she really give a baby to the lucky ticket holder? Well, you’ll need to listen to the episode or read the transcript below to see what happened…

[Note: All the newspaper clippings are from Newspapers.com.]

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

*****

In today’s episode, we continue our journey with Ollie Monroe, to find out more about her life and career.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi everybody – welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Today we’re continuing the story of Ollie Monroe, the successful photographer (and so much more!) who we met last time.

As we learned last time, Ollie’s career took her to multiple states, and saw her running multiple photographic studies, as well as multiple theatres.

We covered the bare bones of her career in the last episode – but today I want to talk about some stories I didn’t have chance to mention the first time around.

For example, I didn’t get a chance to mention that while she’s in Kansas the first time, Ollie Monroe is quite promonent abmont the Kansas Photographers Associations. In 1893 she’s even elected to be the “First Vice-president” of the state-wide organization. (Another woman I’ve talked about on the podcast, Mrs. Rosa Vreeland, was actually the “Second Vice-president”.)

I also haven’t mentioned that throughout her career we see her leveraging advertising really well. We see with other early artisan photographers from this period, too, of course, but there are some remarkable aspects to some of Mrs Monroe’s ads and the servies she provides.

For one thing, in addition to regular kind of portraits, she seems to become really enamored with offering speciality photo objects, everything from “photo jewelry” — like the photo buttons with a photo of her son, Wylie, that she distributes as party favors at a party for him one year — to the fancy photo collages that she can make from photos of “you and your family””, etc. This is in additional to the large prints and framed photos she also offers.

Of course, like all the other photographers of this period, she also offers special deals, including some very creative ones.

For example in 1891, when she’s in Mound Valley, Kansas, she offers a free portrait to any woman who can show proof that she voted in the city elections. (Kansas, it should be noted, allowed women to vote in local elections long before the U.S. Federal voting rights for women were granted in 1920).

Mrs. Monroe generally feels very passionately about getting women the right to vote. In 1893 she is even a founding member – and the first president – of the Equal Suffrage Society in Mound Valley.

Knowing that, it seems fitting – and is kind of fun – that our way of tracking of her in the official records in California in the 1920s is through her voter registration there. She was passionate about suffrage all throughout her life.

Later in her career, ads for her studio become more complex. I’ll include a scan of an elaborate Christmas-time ad for the Star Studio in Clay Center Kansas, under the management of Mrs. O.H. Monroe and Son (that would be son Charles, who is going by C.H. Monroe at this point).

The ad has a collage of photos, which I guess are examples of the kind of “high grade photos” you can get at the studio, which is only open 3 days a week. Of course, if you listen to the last episode I discuss how this is at a time when they are running multiple studios, so I guess this is how they managed to split their time between all the branches.

By the way, Mrs Monroe and Son want to remind you in the ad that, “nothing is more heartily welcomed on Christmas morning than a picture of an absent friend.” Or a picture of an absent friend’s kids, apparently, as most of the sample photos in the ads are of children, either alone, with a parent, or their dog.

Of course, for me, the most memorable ad by Mrs. Ollie Monroe during her career is for her theatre in Elyria, Ohio.

Now remember she was running this vaudeville house and movie theatre. To attract patrons (with the goal to sell as many tickets as possible), she devices special attractions to get people in the door. In 1907, patrons are advised that those attending the show on Wednesday, November 20, 1907 will be automatically entered in the drawing for a live baby, to be given away that evening.

Yes, the headline in the ad actually says “Baby to be given away.”

Now, a couple of years ago I mentioned on the podcast how Mrs. Clara Ober-Towne had an eye-catching ad that at first glance implied that a “good fat baby” was going to be given away at her studio. But when you read the ad completely you soon realised that it was a trick of the typeset, and that actually the ad meant thaty was just photos of your good fat baby that were being (practically) given away, the prices were so low.

But for Mrs. Ollie Monroe, the gimmick of the baby-giveaway at her theatre was really that she was giving away a baby.

Needless to say, this caused quite the stir in town. Half the people believed it, half thought it was some sort of trick.

Multiple articles appear in the newspapers. Mrs. Monroe at one point is quoted as saying that the baby was being donated by an orphanage in Cleveland. A minister in town preaches against this every Sunday in the weeks leading up to the big event.

Then…

The big night comes, and the theatre is packed for the big giveaway.

The holder of the winning ticket comes up on stage to receive his prize … which turns out to be a baby PIG dressed in baby clothes.

So, thankfully, this was in the end an elaborate hoax.

The winner took home his adopted baby pig … but by Christmas the poor pig had been sold to a butcher … and well, I don’t need to tell you what happened after that…

But in some sense it had a happy ending since there was no real life baby involved.

But certainly … she sold the tickets and made money. And in terms of generating publicity – and getting the crowds to come out to the theatre, Mrs Monroe was very successful.

She does, however, run afoul with the mayor of Elyria on several occasions, possbily because he wasn’t that happy with all the publicity she was generating for the town.

At one point he has her arrested for opening a “place of entertainment ” on a Sunday, which is, of course, against the law in Elyria in 1907. She gets out of that charnge when the court agrees with her argument that what she was showing on Sundays was Passion Play movies, and “Passion Play” movies are regiglious and (she argues) therefore should be allowed on a Sunday.

So that was part of Mrs Monroe’s career running the theatre in Elyria: really successful for a time, really creative with the ads, including a number of gimmicks to get people in the door.

Now, at some point, though, the theatre’s management is turned over to Ollie’s oldest son, Wylie, who is at that point 21 and already married. Unfortunately, though, the theatre doesn’t do as well under his management, and ultimately files for bankruptcy.

But then again, that may have been because Wylie becomes very ill in late 1908, when he comes down with tuberculosis.

The family then heads west in early 1909 (ultimately winding up in Seattle), trying to find a cure for Wylie and hoping that going West will help.

Along the way, they pass through Mound Valley, Kansas.

Now, I haven’t mentioned this, but when Olllie and the kids moved to Elyria, they did it without J.R. Monroe, Ollie’s husband. He’d stayed in Kansas (mostly) and she’d filed for divorce in 1900. J.R. had moved around to different towns after this, usually working during this period as a druggist.

Anyway, in 1909, J.R. is back in Mound Valley – but he is actually dying from tuberculosis himself. He passes away in early March 1909.

And … despite the family’s quest for a treatment for Wylie, he, too, passes away, in November 1909 at the age of only 23.

Sadly, tuberculosis will eventually kill all 3 of Ollie’s sons, although the younger 2 do outlive her, dying after her in the 1930s.

Anyway, it’s after Wylie’s death that Ollie and her other sons wind up back in Kansas for a while, then later in Oklahoma and finally California.

Overall, Ollie’s journey spans thousands of miles, with a career that spans across 5 states.

While there are other stories that emerge from the hundredds of newspaper clips we have for Ollie and her family, I want to end this episode by talking about some special photography projects that Ollie Monroe took on at the start of the 20th centruy in Elyria, Ohio.

In the early 1900s she’s hired to help put together a “souvenir” book on Elyria, Ohio called: “Picturesque Elyria. Her enterprising citizens and her industries” (1903).” The book includes photos of the town’s prominent citizens and businesses. There’s even a page on the prominent business women in town, among them Mrs. Monroe. (I’ll include that page in the episode notes for today.) That whole book is actually freely available from the Internet Archive, and I’ll put a link to the whole book in the episode notes was well.

It’s really interesting to see how it’s put together and the kinds of articles and information is has on the prominent citizens in the town and the history.

There’s a special collage on the final page of the book that includes a number of photos of children of Elyria; these photos were all taken in Mrs. Monroe’s studio, of course.

As I mentioned, collages were actually something of a speciality for Mrs. Monroe over the years, we saw that in her ads.

Later, apparently because of the success of the 1903 book, she is contracted to put together a followup book on Lorain County, the county that Elyria is in. That book comes out in 1906. Unlike the Elyria book, Mrs. Monroe is listed as the sole author of the Lorain County book.

Also, unlike the Elyria book, the digital copy of the the Lorain County book is now available online only behind a paywall. It has been digitized by the Ohio Genealogical Society.

If you want to check it out, you can subscribe to the Ohio Genealogical Society.

I really highly recommend if you can get a copy of the whole book, check it out, as it is really is something special. It contains the expected photos of the prominent citizens and their stately homes, and it has interesting pictures of different businesses, and the insides of those businesses …

It’s really like we’re there in Lorain County in 1906 and we can step into the stores, e.g. being greeted by the owners at the shoe parlor, or at the little restaurant run Mrs., etc. And of course, we can step into Mrs. Monroe’s studio, as their are pictures of her reception rooms, etc. There are also pictures of her sons in this book as well.

Now, 2 of her sons were old enough that they were already contributed to the business. Son Wylie, for example, took all the landscape photos in town that are this 1906 book on Lorrain County. Son Charles did all the sketches that accompany many of the collages of photos; for example, there are images of babies being delivered by storks, where the storks are sketches by Charles Monroe the babies are photos taken by Mrs. Monroe.

Son Harry Monroe, the youngest son, was a little too young to work in the studio in 1906. But there is a photo of him with his classmates on one of the pages as well.

The complete title of this book is Lorain County (Ohio), her Beautiful Children, Progressive People and Marvelous Development. Part of the reason for this book seems to have been to try to convince people to move to Lorain County. It was a period when people were searching for new frontiers, and the folks in Ohio were promoting Lorain County as prosperous area to consider moving to. You really get that sense from the book. There are landscape photos of the area, including ones of unpaved roads with the description that this is the site of future development that’s planned. Really quite fascinating.

Now, after I put most of this podcast together I happened to notice that the Lorain County Historical Society has a feature on its Facebook page called #FamilyResearchFriday. Their post on Nov 27 talks about the Mrs. O. H. Monroe’s book 1906 book on Lorain County. I’ll include a link to that in the episode notes. It was great to see them talking about this book.

I also think it would be great to see if anyone has done a before and after type of book that compares the way it looked in 1906 to the way it looks today; I’m curious to see what ever happened with any of the places that were shown as the site of future development in 1906.

As I said, Mrs. Monroe is the author as well as the photographer for this 1906 book.

In the forward to the book, Mrs. Monroe writes,

“This is a progressive age. We are a progressive and restless people and continually on the move, no place so good but that some place might be better. ”

That sentiment, for me, really sums up something about the restlessness we see throughout Ollie Monroe’s life and career.

As a photographer, she’s very progressive with her craft: she’s constantly changing with the times upgrading her techniques, technology, and offerings to the latest things (e.g. the photo jewelry, photo books, etc).

She’s also restless in other ways: moving from place to place, always looking for more opportunities, from opening more branches or her studios to trying additional business (like the theatre).

She’s exemplifies a strong, talented, extremely successful early artisan woman photographer, and early photographic entrepreneur.

******

For today’s episode, look to the episode notes for some of the clippings that I talked about, plus, of course, for how to find Ollie Monroe’s 1903 book on Elyria, which is available for free on the Internet Archive, as well as her 1906 book on Lorain County, which is available behind the paywall. from the Ohio Genealogy Society.

I’ll also include a link to the Lorain County Historical Society’s writeup about Mrs. O. H. Monroe’s Lorain County book.

As usual, you can find all the links and photos over on the website at p3photographers.net. That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

If you have a question or want to just drop me a line, write to me at podcast “at” p3photographers.net.

And remember, you can always connect with me on facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

But that’s it for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed taking this long journey with Ollie Monroe.

As always, thanks for stopping by the podcast.

Until next time, I’m Lee, and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Today we’re following the path of Olive Monroe’s career; our first stop is Kansas.

Kansas (Phase 1) 

Ollie Heighton Monroe starts her photography career before her marriage; here we see a reprint from 1910 for a notice that originally appeared in the newspaper for Miss Heighton’s photography studio.  It mentions getting a “perfect fac-simile of your “phiz”, a term I’d never heard before.

10 years later, Mrs. Monroe is running photography studios in various towns in Kansas; here’s profile/writeup of local businesses for her studio in Oswege Kansas in 1895. Interestingly, it includes a photo of Ollie herself:

Elyria, Ohio 

From Kansas, we now travel to Ohio, where Ollie Monroe lived for over a decade. While there, she ran not only a successful photo studio, but also for some of her years there also simultaneously ran a vaudeville and movie theatre.

Despite the fact that Mrs Monroe consistently calls herself Ollie (a shortened form of her middle name “Olive”, her family persists in calling her by her first name, “Libby”, whenever they put notices in the paper that they have been to visit her.

Kansas (Phase 2)

After leaving Ohio and briefly living in Seattle 1909, but 1910 Ollie Monroe is back in Kansas, opening up a series of studios again around the state, as well as managing a theatre again, this time in Coffeyville, Kansas:

Oklahoma

After just a few years, however, we find Ollie Monroe in Oklahoma, first in Bartlesville, and then later in Tulsa.

As mentioned in the podcast, in 1919 Ollie Monroe takes a cross-country trip by car with her son, daughter-in-law, and another family from Tulsa to California.

To get a sense of what that kind of trip was like in the early 20th century, I highly recommend checking out the book By Motor to the Golden Gate by Emily Post wrote about her 1916 automobile trip from New York to California. More information about Emily Post’s book is available on the Emily Post website. You can also find a free copy of the book on the Internet Archive here.

By the 1920s, Ollie Monroe has joined son and their families in the Los Angeles area; she works as a photographer and lives in Calfornia  until her death in 1931.

But there’s more to come … much more! … about the  journey of Mrs. Ollie Monroe. That’s all coming in the next episode – stay tuned!

[Note: All the clippings are from Newspapers.com.]

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, we’re going to go on a journey along with a photographer named Ollie Monroe.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi everybody. Welcome to today’s episode of Photographs, Pistols & Parasols. Today’s we’re going to meet a woman name Ollie Monroe, a woman of infinite resolve and determination, whose career in photographer spans more than 4 decades!

Libbie Olive Heighton was born in the U.S., either in Ohio or Penn., dependig on which record we choose to use as our source belive, since it varies.

In any case, she was born in 1860, and in 1880, Miss Libby Heighton is living with her mother in Ohio, working as a dressmaker.

By the way, I should mention that although her first name was really Libby, she never uses that name herself as an adult. She prefers to go by Ollie, which was based on her middle name, Olive. However, my husband Chris and I noticed that whenever there are social notices in the newspaper about relatives coming to visit her, she is always referred to as Libby, not Ollie. However, since she referred to herself as “Ollie” (or “Mrs. O.H. Heighton” throughout her career) I will that name throughout this podcast.

Anyway, by 1885, she’s already established as Mound Valley, Kansas’ “best photographer”. One curious word I was not familiar with appears in one of her ads in the newspaper in 1885: it reads, “If you want a perfect fac-simile of your ‘phiz’ call on Miss Heighton.” “phiz” is slang for “physiognomy” (a person’s facial expression or features). I hadn’t hear that slang for “face” before, but apparently it was popular circa 1885.

Now, even after Ollie gets married to John R. Monroe on December 31, 1885, she continues her photographic career. “JR”, as he is known, is NOT a photographer either at the time of his marriage or later. And in fact, throughout the next 46 years, Mrs Ollie Monroe mosty runs her studios all on her own, although, as we’ll discover, she does occasionally have a business partner for brief periods.

Between 1885-1897 or so —- we’ll call this her first Kanasas phase — Mrs Ollie Monroe is busy establishing a little chain of branches throughout Kansas. Her home base is Mound Valley, but she opens up branches in Neodosha and Oswego, among other places, during this period.

Toward the late 1890s, Ollie starts making frequent trips to visit relatives in Elyria, Ohio. While there, she winds up taking over an established photo gallery in Elyria as well. Eventually she either sells off or just closes closing her Kansas studios moves to Elyria permanently by 1900.

This is Ollie’s “Ohio phase”, a period which sees her successfully running the popular Monroe studio in Elyria through 1908. Unlike in Kansas, she doesn’t seem to have multiple photo studio branchess that’s she’s running in Ohio. However, during this period she is also simultaneously running a vaudeville and movie theatre. However, she does turn over the theatre management to her eldest son, Wylie, around 1907 (at this point he’s 21 and married).

1909 is a bit of a tumultuous year which sees Ollie and her family leaving Ohio, and briefly heading west to Seattle.

However, in early 1910 Ollie is back in Kansas, this time in Coffeyville, where she winds up running another photo studio. For the first few months, she’s partnering with a man who is not a relative; this is the only time we find Ollie doing that during her career, as mostly she either goes it alone, or partners with one or more of her sons (as we’ll see momentarily).

Anyway, in this Kansas – phase 2 – period, not only does Ollie open that photography studio in Coffeyville in 1910, but by the end of that year she and her middle son, Charles H. Monroe, have taken charge of the Princess Theatre in Coffeyville. The newspaper headline proclaims that they are “succeeding where others have failed;” this is a rather an over-the-top newspaper account of Ollie and Charles running that theatre! Her youngist son, Harry, has by this time trained as a pianist, and he joins his mother and brother in Coffeyville, to work at the theatre.

Ollie and her two sons also briefly form a partnership to run a photography studio together in Coffeyville: Mrs Monroe and Sons. But by the end of the summer that partnership has dissolved, leaving Mrs Monroe on her own again running the studio.

At some point she and Charles also stop managing the theatre as well, but during this Kansas phase 2 period, Mrs Monroe also opens a branch studio in Oswego Kansas, where she’d had one years earlier during her Kansas phase 1 period. Plus, she and Charles are managing the “Star Photo Studio” in Clay Center, Kansas during this time, too.

Then, after a year in California (where she may or may not have been running anything), she’s back in the Mid-West, starting her “Oklahoma phase” by opening up a studio in Bartlesville, OK, and then Tulsa.

Plus, she apparently owns quite a bit of property in Miami, OK.

Interestingly, at one point she and her son Charles have *competing* studios in Tulsa, before joining forces once again to run the Monroe studio in Tulsa together, along with Charles’ new wife, Julia.

But then Charles and his new wife head to Calfiornia circa 1919.

There’s a notice in the Coffeyville, Kansas papers in the summer of 1919 that Mrs Monroe, her son Charles, his wife Julia, and another couple are taking a motor trip (in 2 automboiles) from Tulsa to Los Angeles and they are going to be passing through Coffeyville, Kansas on their way and hope to visit with folks there.

Hmm. Heading west from Tulsa by way of Kansas? If you’re like me, it may have struck you odd that their route from Tulsa to Los Angeles would take them trhough Coffeyville, Kansas, but consider

By the way, Emily Post – yes, that Emily Post of etiquette column fame – wrote a fascintating account of the trip she and her son took driving across the U.S. in 1916. (I’ll include a link to more information about that – I highly recommend it. Chris read it to me as we were driving across the U.S. at some point a few years ago, and the accounts of the muddy – unpaved roads, having to find places to stay, etc. really painted a very different picture of car travel before 1920!

But I digress. But the state of roads and the realities of auto travel in the early 20th century may be dictating the route that Ollie and her travelling companions need to take for their trip in 1919.

Now, the notices in the paper imply Mrs. Monroe is only temporarily closing her studio in Tulsa for the summer. But in fact by 1920 Mrs Monroe has joined her son Charles and his wife Julia, who are running a photography studio in Los Angeles.

By the way, one thing that really comes across throughout Mrs. Monroe’s career (in Kansas, Ohio, and Oklahoma), is that during the summers it was too hot to run the studio. I hadn’t realy thought out it much before, but after seeing all of the notices about Ollie’s studios shutting down for the summer, it reminded me of two things:

As I said, having lived in Iowa for a time myself, I can attest it is extremely hot and humid during the summer months. No wonder Ollie kept shutting her studios for the summer in all those places.

Anyway, back to Ollie’s journey.

She spends the 1920s in California, working as a phbotographer. The only records she shows up in during this period, though, are the voter registration records, as the online digital copies of the California directories are kind of spotty for that period. There’s no trace of Ollie – or Charles or Julia Monroe, for that matter – in any directory in Los Angeles or Hungtington beach where we’re certain they were living (where Ollie is registered as a Republican, by the way).

However, we can tell from the census records in 1920 and 1930 that Julia and Charles Monroe are running a studio in Los Angeles in this period. And, we can see from Ollie Monroe’s obitutuary in 1931 that she spent 12 years in California as a photographer prior to her death.

Wow, that was quite a career, wouldn’t you say?

But all of that has only been the bare bones outline of Ollie Monroe’s career. Chris and I have found hundreds of clippings about Mrs. Ollie Monroe, and there are several stories and bits of information that I want to share. But that’s going to have to wait until the next episode, as I’m determined to try to keep these episodes a little shorter this year so I can try get the transcripts ready more quickly!

For today’s episode, look to the episode notes for some of the clippings related to what I talked about today, as well as a couple of studio portraits that Chris and I found on ebay by Mrs. O.H. Monroe. Plus, I’ll include more information on how to find Emily Post’s book about her 1916 automobile trip; her book is called By Motor to the Golden Gate; it’s available for free from the INternet archive and I”ll include a link.

As usual, you can find that over on the website at p3photogarphers.net. That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “.” net.

Have a question or want to just drop me a line? write to me at [email protected]

Or you connect with me on facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

In part 2 of Ollie Monroe’s journey, we’re going to be finding out some more details about her life and career, including both triumphs and family tragedies.

The stories will include information about

So look for all of that in the next episode.

But that’s it for today.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Until next time, I’m Lee and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Advertisement for the Misses Garrity studios in the 1886 Chicago Business Directory showing their 2 locations in 1886;

Examples of photographic works by the Sallie E. Garrity’s various “Miss Garrity” Studios (starting circa 1887)

Note that  2 of these  show her alternate studio name, the Athené Galleries. Special thanks to Elizabeth E. Reilley from the University of Louisville Photographic Archives for providing the following images.

2. Miss Garrity opened her next studio in Chicago, running it circa 1890-1893. Here is the famous cabinet card photo of Ida B. Wells, taken by Miss Sallie E. Garrity:

3.  Photos from the Catholic Edication Exhibit at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair

Salle E. Garrity also exhibited her own photography at the 1893 World’s Fair.  Here’s a partial list of the woman who exhibited photos here:

Check it out – at the top of the list is 719.  Albright, Mrs. F. L.. That’s none other than  Franc Albright;  see episode 48 for more on her story.   Also, just a quick note that woman who exhibited as “Amateur photographs” were still extremely well-regarded in their own lifetime.  For example, just above Miss Garrity is  is 722. Farnsworth, Emma J. from Albany, N.Y. She was profiled in a 1901 article in the Ladies Home Journal, and Alfred Steiglitz, the “father of American photographer”, once proclaimed her as

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, I’m going to introduce you to a Chicago photographer named Sallie E. Garrity.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi, everybody, welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols. Today, I’m going to take you back to Chicago in the 1880s and introduce you to a woman named Sallie Evangelica Garrity, a woman who was a photographer, and very successful photographer, in both Chicago and Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1880s and early 1890s.

In 1880 she’s living with her parents, and several of her siblings in Chicago. Sallie – at the age of 18 – is already working in a photo gallery. Sallie, ir should be noted, started life as a woman named “Sarah”. But “Sarah” turns into “Sallie” pretty quickly. So I’m going to refer to her as Sallie Garrity throughout this podcast.

So Sallie is working in the photo gallery in 1880. Because of the availability or lack thereof of directories that have been scanned for Chicago, in the 1880s we’re going to have to fast forward to 1885 when we next find Sallie Garrity working as a photographer, running her own studio with her sister, Mary Garrity, who is two years older. NoW in 1880 (in that census record) Mary Garrity did not have a profession noted. But some time between 1880 and 1885, Mary Garrity has been taken into the photography business by her sister, and they’re running a studio called the Misses Garrity studio. Misses is spelled M I S S E S – i.e., multiple “Miss Garritys” are running the Misses Garrity studio together. Interestingly, their slightly younger brother Thomas is working for them as a photographer.

Again, it’s hard to say exactly what happened between 1880 when Sallie Garrity was working for some other photographer’s studio, and 1885, when we find her running the studio with her sister. We’ll come back to what might have been happening then in a little bit.

But by 1885, the sisters are running the studio in Chicago. It turns out, based on an ad that’s in a business directory for Chicago in 1886, that we find out that the two sisters were actually running two branches of that Misses Garrity studio, one in Chicago, and one in Louisville, Kentucky, a few hundred miles away.

So, by 1886 they’re running these two studios and making a success of it.

But then in 1886, life changes for the Misses Garrity.

First, Mary Garrity meets and marries a man named Thomas J. Webb, who’s a businessman who eventually becomes a very successful coffee and tea merchant in Chicago. At the moment when Mary Garrity marries Thomas Webb, she seems to give up photography; there’s no evidence that Mary Garrity {Webb] ever again works as a photographer.

Around that time, and maybe it’s because Mary got married (?), Sallie gives up the Chicago studio and moves to Louisville, Kentucky, and focuses on that studio.

She rebrands that studio — because Mary’s no longer working with her — so the studio in Louisville is rebranded as the “Miss Garrity” studio. That will continue to be Sallie Garrity’s brand for most of the rest of her career.

When we find her in Louisville, in a 1887, it’s not just Sallie who’s moved to Louisville, Kentucky, but the whole rest of her family has moved there as well. And Sallie seems to be the breadwinner in the family. Her father apparently has died by this time; Sallie is supporting her mother, her brother Thomas (who’s working for her), and her younger brothers Aloysius and John, who will eventually go to work for her but are not at that moment.

But interestingly, in addition to the photography studio in 1887, she and her mother try to set up a new college, called the Kentucky College of Music and Art. For a couple of years is Sallie’s in the papers trying to raise money, and her mother is trying to raise money as well, trying to get some financing for this college.

They get some instructors [to sign on] but then Sallie has a very big falling-out With one of the instructors they initial hire – a woman named Madame Octavia Hensel, who is described as the instructor of vocal culture.

But the main problem is that the money isn’t there. And so, college is ultimately forced to close in 1890, after just a couple of years. By the end, Sallie’s youngest brother, John, had actually taken over what had been described as Sallie’s responsibilities for the college, probably because Sallie then was able to then focus again on her photography studio.

But in that period where she is attempting to raise the money for the college, she rebrands the studio briefly to something called the Athené gallery, spelled a t h e n e with an accent, so I’m not quite sure how to pronounce it. There are some examples of work from that Athené studio that have both Miss Garrity’s name and also the name of a man, L. Richard Frank. L. Richard Frank apparently was hired by Miss Garrity to be the photographer at the studio during this period of 1888-89, the point at which Miss Garrity was distracted by all the college issues.

That connection to the Athené gallery – the having this other photographic operator working for Miss Garrity – was something that was revealed by the collection at the University of Louisville. I want to thank Elizabeth E. Riley, who is the curator of the Photographic Archives at the University of Louisville for supplying these examples from Miss Garrity’s gallery, because it’s really interesting to see this alternate name for that studio. In the directories at the time, the photography gallery is always just listed as Miss Garrity’s name, it’s never listed as that Athené gallery name.

So, bu 1890 the college has been forced to close, and Sallie Garrity throws herself back into photography full force. She winds up with a very nice sort of “puff piece” profile in something called the Photographic Times that appears circa March, early March of 1890. She’s portrayed as a successful 27 year old woman photographer who has been independently building her business; she’s netting $10,000 a year!

She is portrayed in this article as a woman who learned photography by working for other people, and that sort of checks with that 1880 census that we see where she’s working for another photography gallery.

But in this article, her “origin story” as a photographer, the way she portrays it, is that when she first opened her own studio, she hired a male camera operator to be the photographer, because she had only learned the business of running a photography studio, not the actual mechanics of making a photograph.

This is what she claims in this 1890 profile.

Let me just read you a little bit about what she says about all this. Again, I’m quoting from this 1890 profile. It says …

It goes on to say …

The story goes on to say there were….

people were waiting to be posed, negatives were waiting to be developed, pictures were waiting to be finished. And not one of these things had the young woman ever done, for she had attended only to the business side of the establishment. Nevertheless, she pluckily bundle her artist off, rolled up her sleeves, and went to work as calmly as if she had known all about it for the last 50 years.

So the story goes on with a few more details. But basically what it’s saying is that when she first opened her studio, she hired a man to work with her. He knew how to take a picture, they had falling out, and she had to overnight turn herself into a photographer.

Which is a great story. I want to believe that it’s true.

However, knowing that she did work with her sister in 1885 and 1886, and that’s not mentioned anywhere in this profile, Iie got to wonder. Was this supposed to be something that was describing a period before the Misses Garrity gallery in Chicago?

It is really too bad that the directories 1882 and 1885 are not available online. At some point, I really want to follow up with someone in the Chicago archives and try to track down a little bit more about whether there’s any possibility that this story that Miss Garrity tells in 1890 was actually true about how she turned herself into a photographer overnight.

Alright, so we’ve had the phase of the Misses Garrity gallery in Chicago – that’s phase 1 of Miss Garitty’s career.

Then we had the phase in Louisville from 1887 to 1890. During that period in Louisville, she opened up a second branch in Bowling Green, Kentucky as well. That branch was run by her brother Thomas, who of course had been working for her for years.

Things seemed to going really well at the beginning of 1890. But unfortunately, at the end of March 1890, the Louisville reservoir bursts and floods Louisville, and the Miss Garrity gallery is completely flooded.

Sallie does manage to resurrect it and clean it out and build it back up, thnough.

At that point, she may or may not still have the Bowling Green branch run by her brother Thomas. There are no directories [online] from Bowling Green from that period. And there’s some other complications that happened around that time with Thomas. So it’s possible the Bowling gGeen studio branch actually got closed.

But as I said she had rebuilt her Louisville studio after the flood.

But then in December 1890, there’s a notice in the paper that she’s actually selling it to Mrs L. Richardson; Miss Garrity is then moving to Chicago. S

So that’s then going to be the third phase of her photography career – take 2 in Chicago is moving back there and setting up a new Miss Garrity gallery.

There are a couple of reasons that she might have chosen to go back to Chicago around the early 1890s. One is that back when she moved to Louisville in 1887, there was a notice in the paper that Miss Garrity had been the first woman to sign up to display her art – i.e. her photographs – in the Women’s Pavilion in the upcoming 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. That was back in 1887.

But of course in 1890 the Expo is now starting to come closer, and so she’s going to have to go and start arranging for that.

She’s also taking on assignments to take pictures of some of the other exhibits at the World’s Fair, too. For example, Miss Garrity took pictures of something called the Catholic Education Exhibit, at the Columbian Exposition, the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. There are photographs of that Catholic Education Exhibit that are in the Catholic University Archives. Those photos that are scanned and available online in the Catholic University Archives, but none of those are actually attributed to Sallie Garrity; there’s no photographer attribution at all.

However, the Notre Dame archives has online a whole guide to their photographs from that Catholic education exhibit at the World’s Fair of 1893. And in their guide to the photographs, they attribute all of those photographs to miss Sallie E. Garrity. I think the guide to the Notre Dome archive photos matches up with the photos that are online at the Catholic University. I’ll put links to both of them and you can judge for yourself.

But I think it’s interesting to see Sallie E. Garrity’s work in the types of photos she took for this exhibit. It’s also interesting she was getting that kind of commission; by being based in Chicago, she would be well-positioned as Chicago photographer who would be contacted to take pictures at the 1893 World’s Fair.

But of course, she is exhibiting her own work as well in the Women’s Pavilion. And just to point out, I’ve mentioned the 1893 World’s Fair on the podcast before. If you might recall that Franc Albright (Episode 48), Mrs Albright, from New Mexico was very instrumental in setting up the New Mexican pavilion at the World’s Fair. But in addition, she exhibited her own photography at the Women’s Pavilion; her name is listed in the program right next to Sallie Gary’s name for having displayed their photographs as professional photographers. The display of women’s photography [at the World’s Fair in 1893] included both professionals and amateur photographers.

Another woman who is in Chicago in 1893 was a young black journalist and civil rights activist named Ida B. Wells. Wells ran a successful newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee in the 1880s, but 1892 her offices were attacked by an angry white mob protesting writing she had done against lynchings in the south. Ida b. Wells was away on a trip to New York City at that time and, fortunately, she was out of harm’s way when the mob attacked. But her offices were destroyed and she was unable to return to Memphis because of the danger.

So she wound up traveling the country and continuing her crusade for better treatment for blacks.

According to the online encyclopedia of Chicago, in 1893, Ida B wWlls traveled to Chicago to protest the exclusion of African Americans from the exhibits at the World’s Fair. She and Frederick Douglass actually co-authored a pamphlet called The Reason why the Colored American is not in the World’s Columbian exhibition. They distributed that pamphlet at the fair.

I bring this up because one of the most famous early photos of Ida B. Wells was taken at the Chicago studio of one Miss Garrity. The original cabinet card photo is owned by the Smithsonian Museum’ss National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. And they have a copy of that online which I’ll share in the Episode Notes for today.

Now, we can only speculate what brought Miss wWlls into Miss Garrity’s gallery there in Chicago.

As a side note, you might recall that Frederick Douglass actually had an interest in photography, and he had traveled a generation earlier to Chicago to have his photo taken by the celebrated Chicago female photographer of that era, one Lydia cadwell (Episode 58).

Anyway, as it turns out, the photo of Miss Ida B wells by Miss Garrity is referenced and used in countless write ups when you look across the internet and in books about Ida B. W Well’s life. The Smithsonian correctly identifies that the “Miss Garrity” – the photographer for that photo – was Miss Sallie Garrity. But I have seen it misidentified as “Mary Garrity” as that photographer. But of course we now know that that’s false since Mary Garrity gave up photography when she got married in 1886.

Anyway, I’m hoping at some point to run across some more information about how Ida B. Wells happened to get her photo taken by Miss Garrity in Chicago, circa 1893. If anyone out there has any information to point me towards, please do get in touch.

But in any case, I thought it was just interesting to find this connection between Miss Garrity; Miss Garrity’s work is actually collected and she’s therefore somewhat celebrated as a photographer because of the person in the photo she took.

And we have one more bit of news from 1893 regarding Sallie Garrity and a connection to the 1893 Colombian exhibition.

In the Chicago daily news on December 16 1893. There’s the following notice in the paper,

Miss Garrity to wed: Chicago’s well known Lady Photographer Marries an Ex-Consul.

William Elmendorf Rothery, consul for Liberia for the past 10 years of Philadelphia and recently the World’s Fair Commissioner for the same country will be married this evening at the residence of Archbishop Feehan. The bride will be Miss Sallie Evanngelica Garrity, the photographer at Jackson Street at Wabash Avenue. After a week’s trip through the east, the couple will settle in Chicago permanently.

However, unlike what it says in that notice, the couple does not seem to settle down in Chicago. In fact, Miss Garrity – Mrs Rothery – closes her studio and seems to give up photography entirely. The Rotherys move west, where they become newspaper and magazine publishers. Sallie Rothery also writes newspaper and magazine articles.

Now William and Sallie Rothery apparently had a rather interesting marriage relationship, because we see them in the directories sometimes together, sometimes apart, sometimes living apart in the same town, or sometimes living in different states. Mostly Sallie is based in Los Angeles, although at one point she does wind up living in San Francisco. William, on the other hand, turns up all up and down the west coast.

In the 1900 census it seems that was a period when they were living together. They were both in LA and Sallie’s niece, the 19 year old Florence Keefe (who was the daughter of her elder sister, Catherine) is actually living with them.

By 1906, though, the marriage for the Rotherys is over. And Sallie, who’s at that point living in LA with her sister Catherine, sues for divorce from William Rothery. He’s up in Portland at this point.

A notice appears in the LA Times on August 4 1906 that, “Sallie Rothery obtained a decree from William E. Rothery on the grounds of failure to provide and dissipation”, among otherthings.

In August of 1906, at the time of the divorce, Sallie is only in her mid 40s. She’s already had several successful careers to this point, including, originally, she was a photographer, and then later she is a newspaper publisher, a magazine publisher and a writer.

She’s listed in the 1907 L.A. directory but there’s no occupation listed for her, so there’s no clue as to what she’s planning to do next.

But then … on June 17 1907, less than a year after her divorce from William Rothery, Sallie E. Garrity Rothery, age 45, is dead.

Her death is attributed to dropsy, which today we would call edema.

She dies in Ocean Park, California at the home of her sister, Catherine Keefe.

I have to say, no matter how many stories my husband and I dive into to track down the lives of these early women photographers, it’s always a shock to run across an unexpectedly early ending to the story when someone dies so young. Very sad.

… So, that’s the life story of Miss Sallie E. Garrity, a Chicago photographer who built a successful photography practice with multiple studio branches both in Chicago and places in Kentucky over a 10 or more year period.

And she’s an example of a woman photographer who partnered with a sister early on in the Misses Garrity studios that were in both Chicago and Louisville.

And then, as Miss Garrity, she continued to build her studio and her reputation as a skilled photographer, all on her own.

*****

In the episode notes today, I’ll include images by Miss Garrity, including some from the University of Louisville archives. Again, I want to thank Elizabeth Riley for sharing those examples and allowing me to share them here with the podcast.

I’ll also put some links to that archive at Notre Dame and also at the Catholic University, which have the information about and digital copies of Sallie Garrity’s pictures of the Catholic education exhibit.

As always, these materials will be available on the website at p3photographers.net.

If you have any questions or have any information about Sallie Garrity’s work that you have from any other archive or that you’ve run across on your own, please do drop me a line at podcast “at” p3 photographers “dot” net.

Also, I do put information on the Facebook page for the podcast, which facebook.com/p3photographers. This month, look for more information about a new feature I’m hoping to start which will have some more information about the “side stories” that I wind up uncovering when we’re looking for information about the photographers. Chris and I are both fascinated by the side stories, and I always want to share them, but I’ve decided that I will take them out of the main story on a photographer if she isn’t directly involved with the story.

But, I do want to share them. So look for more information about that later this month.

I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to write it all up yet.

But I have to say, Sallie Garrity is indirectly connected to a lot of intriguing side stories. But a lot of the ones about her husband, for example, actually start right after her death.

Anyway, look for more information about this new “side stories” feature on the Facebook page (facebook/p3photographers). I’ll also put some links on the regular website, too, whenever I post that information, at p3photographers.net.

But in any case, that’s it for today’s episode.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to yet another talented early women photographer from Chicago. Special thanks to my husband, Chris, for doing a lot of extra research to track down some of the details about Sallie Garrity, which were a little bit harder than normal to track down due to variation in spelling and – as I mentioned – all the missing directories. Well, missing from the standpoint that they are just not available online.

In any case, thanks for stopping by today!

Until next time, I’m Lee and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

UPDATE Oct 2, 2020:   The full transcript has now been added below. Due to some recording issues, the audio version of today’s podcast episode wound up with some sections left “on the cutting room floor”.  However, I’ve included everything that was supposed to be in the audio in the written version below. A little bonus to thank you all for your patience!

Click here to see more photos by Mabel Sykes and other materials about her life, including her work with Rudolph Valentino are covered in Jim Craig over on his blog   Under Every Tombstone. Many thanks to Jim for sharing his treasure trove about Mabel with everyone on his blog!

In addition, here’s that $1 photo I found in antique store that led me on the hunt to find  the photographer Mabel Sykes, wherever she was.

Also, here are few more articles about her and/or ads for her studio. Note that all the articles will take you to the appropriate online newspaper article where I found them.  All the sites require an account to read the full story, but you can get a trial subscription to start if you don’t have one.

One of the many articles about Mabel Sykes’s divorce from Melvin Sykes (Jim Craig including many more in his blog post.)

And here’s the one of Melvin in a hat, with his next wife, Margaret Sykes:

Sample Society photos published in Chicago newspapers, taken by Mabel Sykes:

But photos by Mabel Sykes were also used to show the people in more serious news stories in the newspapers:

Mabel got the rights to the studio she had run with Melvin Sykes after their divorce, and advertises quite often in the newspapers:

Melvin, though, opens a competing Sykes studio.  In 1917, after Mabel Sykes remarries (to Alfred Barsanti), Melvin runs this ad in the newspapers.  However, Mrs. Mabel Barsanti is still running the Mabel Sykes studio, so Melvin wasn’t necessarily the only Sykes in town! [Update: after I recorded the episode, I realized that Mabel’s studio suffered fire damage in July 1917, so it’s possible that it took her a while to re-open, and maybe that’s when Melvin started running this ad. But he runs it a lot.]

But it is interesting that often their studio ads wind up side-by-side on occasion, both in the newspapers …

and in the Chicago city directory Photographer listings:

But even then, Mabel takes out larger ads in the directories: she’s the Sykes that people see at the top of their “yellow pages” type business listings:

Mabel Sykes was so popular that she gets featured in one of those ‘then an now’ page in the newspaper, celebrating local business people and showing them when they were babies:

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, we meet Mabel Sykes, who in the early 20th century, found success as noted  Chicago photographer. She  took photos of everyday folks as well as the rich and famous. That includes one Hollywood star who dubbed her his favorite photograher of all time.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Today I’m going to introduce you to both an interesting photographer and an interesting website that is a fantastic resource about that photographer.

But before I get to that, I want to talk abuot how I first came across the work of a photographer named Mabel Sykes.

Back in the “before time”, when it was possible to spend time digging through boxes of photos in antique stores, many was the weekend that my husband, Chris, and I spent time looking for examples of works by our early women artistan photographers.

As I mentioned back in episode 38, to do this hunting at an antique store, we carry along our “Pocket Palmquist”, which is to say our portable version of a database of women photographers’ names that we’ve done research on, combined with the rest of Peter Palmquist’s list of women photographers. THe combined list is over 20,000 names.

So, normally, it’s a little slow going – unless there’s a woman’s name, or a “Miss ” or “Mrs” or “Misses” indicated on the photo.

If we find a match with a name on a photo – and it’s not outrageously expensive – we’ll buy it.

Normally, we will invest in buying something if we find a match to a name in the database, but our one rule is we don’t buy a photo that has only a name but no location. We’ve gotten burned in the past doing that, so we are a little more cautious these days.

But at the end of one long session in an anqiute store somewhere in the U.S., I got down to the bottom of the last box and pulled out a beautiful head and shoulders shot of a young boy in a suit. It was printed on a piece of paper about 5×7, printed so as to suggest a mat around the edges. As I stared at the fancy script underneath the photo, trying to make it out, I realized it spelled out the name of the photographer, and it was a woman’s name, “Mabel Sykes.” But no address.

But … it was only $1.

So, I thought for sure that it was worth $1 to see if we could find a Mabel Sykes on Ancestry.com who had been a photographer somewhere in the world.

And our “Pocket Palmquist” revealed that Peter had found a Mabel Sykes in California.

So, we boldly spent $1.

And sure enough, a quick look both on ancestry.com and newspapers.com started to reveal information about a Mabel Sykes and her studio in Chicago.

But then … a quick search on the internet pulled up something even more unusual: someone had written a blog post all about Mabel Sykes, on a website called “Under Every Tombsone!”

The author’s name is Jim Craig, and he has done such a wonerful job documenting many aspects of Mabel Syke’s life and career, that at the end I’m going to point you to his website to get more details that he shares about her.

But first today, I want to share a few highlights about Mabel Sykes here on the podcast. I’m going to talk about a mix of material that Jim Craig covers, with a some additional bits of info about her photography and career. You know, the kind of stuff I usually talk about here.

OK, so let’s just dive in at the begining.

Mabel Huxley in born in Illinois in 1883, the oldest of 4 children and the only daughter.

According to a story in the Chicago papers in 1914, Mabel went, in 1902, into a photography studio to have her photo taken. The photographer was instantly smitten by her beauty [the article says she was celebrated in her own day as one of the most beautiful women in Chicago.]

By the end of her appointment at the studio, Mabel has had not only her photo taken but also been asked for her hand in marriage. As the story goes — at least in an article a few years later — the photographer, Melvin Sykes, proposed to Mabel on the spot that same afternoon.

The lovebirds are married in 1902.

Melvin’s already been esablished as a successful photographer at this point, and Mabel joins him in the business. She’s listed early on as an “office manager”, but then she transitions to becoming a photographer in her own right. If she had done any photography prior to her marriage, it’s not clear from anything that either Jim Craig or Chris or I have found to date.

In any case, Melvin and Mabel form a very succesful partnership, and “Sykes Studio” expands, to the point when, around 1913, they open up another branch in Chicago.

And they hire a young woman to run that branch.

And … well, long-time listeners of this podcast can probably guess what happens next…

[Due to Melvin’s interest in their young branch manager], in 1914, Mabel files for divorce.

To say that this divorce is a cause celeb in Chicago in 1914 is an understatement! There are articles and photos of all points of the “love triangle” participants, i.e. Mabel, Melvin, and the young assistant, Margaret.

Actually, it’s amazing that Melvin’s history with marriage hadn’t made the papers before this. As it turns out – and is chronicled in every article about the very public divorce – Mabel was Melvin’s 3rd wife.

When the dust finally settles, [Mabel is granted the divorce] and she gets the Sykes Studio business, and the right to continue calling herself “Mabel Sykes”. That’s how she re-brands the studio.

Melvin is prohibited from remarrying for the next 2 years … in Illinois.

To dodge around that loop hole, he and Margaret run off to Indiana and get married a mere 3 months after the divorce from Mabel is final.

Now, two years later, articles popup in the newspapers – complete with new photos of Margaret (Mrs. Sykes #4) and our charming cad Melvin. The new stories are all about their 1916 “remarriage” in Illinois. By 1916, Melvin and Margaret now have 2 babies, and there is some doubt about the legality of their 1914 Indiana marriage,so they have another ceremony in Illinois.

Anyway, getting back to Mabel, after Mabel and Melvin get divorced, Mabel rebrands the “Sykes Studio” as the “Mabel Sykes Studio”. It’s located in the “loop” section of Chicago, and caters- as any artisan studio does – to a variety of people and businesses. From time to time there are notices in the newspaper saying that her studio is also taking high school photos for the yearbook; the notices provide directions for when the students should report to the Mabel Sykes studio to get their year book photos taken.

Also, Mabel take photos that appear in the newspapers. They illustrate not only Society page notices, but also provide photos of people who are the subject of more serious stories. For example, in 1917, there is a front page story about a family menaced by a German bomb; the husband, wife, and son are all pictured with the story, including a photo by Mabel Sykes of the son.

1917 is actually an interesting year for Mabel; her “Mabel Sykes Studio” is going strong, so she keeps that as her photography brand when she marries her second husband, Alfred J. Barsanti. Unlike Melvin, Barsanti is a few years Mabel’s junior .. and he’s working for her when they get married.

Now, I haven’t really mentioned that Melvin and Margaret (remember, she’s Mrs. Sykes #4) actually stayed in Chicago for a while after they got married. Melvin opens up a photography studio that competes with his ex-wife’s studio, and sometimes their ads even appear side-by-side in the newspaper. [Note that In tne listig for Photographers in the Chicago telephone books, Mabel Sykes Studio is alway listed alphabetically ABOVE Melvin Syke’s Studio.]

After Mabel gets married in 1917, she’s know as Mrs. Albert Barsanti, even though her photography studio and brand continues to be marked with “Mabel Sykes.” [Prior to Mabel’s re-marriage, Melvin takes out ads in the newspapers saying he’s the “original Sykes” in Chicago. Which is true.] But after her re-marriage, since technically she’s no longer Mrs Sykes socially, Melvin takes out ads in in the 1918 news papers saying he’s the “original and only Sykes photographer in town”. Which is only sort of true. [Mabel’s studio does suffer damage from a fire in the summer of 1917, so it is possible that for a time, while she is remodeling after the fire, Melvin really is the only Sykes studio? Maybe.]

But I think Mabel is more popular overall. She’s the one that’s mentioned in the social notices in the newspaper, like the puff piece in the 1920s that profiles local business people and shows them when they were babies. [She is also successful enough that she buys an mansion on Chicago’s north side, opening up a second studio that caters to the folks in high society, while leaving her loop studio open for everyone else, I guess. ]

By the way, at some point in the 1920s, Melvin and Margaret leave town, turning up in California, and ultimately running a studio together in LA and later San Diego. As I mentioned, our “Pocket Palmquist” indicated that Peter found a “Mabel Sykes” in iCalifornia, but I haven’t been able to track down any trace of Mabel in California; so far everything I’ve seen in that state is for Melvin and Margaret.

[On any case, Mabel’s business continues going strong. Over the years, she hires a number of assistants who later open their own studios across the country – and when they do, they proclaim in their ads that they had previously worked at the Mabel Sykes studio in Chicago. So her reputation as a high quality photographer was well known across the country.]

But not only was Mabel somewhat famous as photographer, she also famous client, including one rather famous one in particular: Rudolph Valentino, the silent movie star.

Jim Craig, the blogger I mentioned at the beginning, is actually an expert on Valentino. It was through his interest in Valentino that Jim wound up with an amazing find on ebay. As he said in an email to me, “I bought a huge lot of material on Mabel Sykes off ebay hoping that there might be some Valentino material in it but when I got it I realized what a treasure trove it was about Mabel and the cad of a first husband.”

And indeed, it was a real find. Head over here to his blogpost so you can see all the great photos of that were included in that lot he bought – it turned out to be Mabel’s personal collection of photos, including pictures of her, Melvin, her house .. and also many of her photos of Rudolph Valentino.

Let me read you just a little bit from Jim’s blog:

She photographed them all from the rich and famous to the just plain folks. Her studio was right in the heart of Chicago’s loop. So whenever anyone famous came through town and they all did at one time or another, they ended up in Mabel studio. It was during one of his many trips through Chicago that Rudolph Valentino met Mabel Sykes. …

The camera loved Rudolph Valentino. And so did millions of fans all over the world. Mabel Sykes loved to take photos of beautiful people and Valentino certainly fit that bill Valentino traveled the world over and was photographed by the world’s best photographers, but he always claimed that his favorite photographer was Mabel Sykes.

And again, this is taken from, Jim Craig’s blog post on Mabel Sykes and Rudolph Valentino.

Let me just read you a little bit more about what happened at the end of Rudolph Valentino’s life. Here’s another quote from Jim’s blog:

Rudolph Valentino came through Chicago for the last time on July 20, 1926. He was tired and sick. He would actually die from complications of a ruptured appendix just a little over one month later – on August 23, 1926.

As soon as Mabel Sykes got word that Valentino was on his way to Chicago she cabled him and asked him to set aside some time for another photography session. Valentino responded that he was tired and didn’t feel up to par. He complained that even Mabel Sykes would not be able to make him look well and healthy. Mabel wouldn’t take no for an answer, but also bought a little “insurance”. She met the train in Chicago and went on board to shoot some candid shots of Valentino – just in case he begged off the studio session.

And Jim has one of those candid shots Mabel took of Valentino on the train that day, the month before his death – it’s included in the blog post.

Jim also has the last picture that she took of Valentino in the studio the next day, where Valentino doesn’t quite look his best.

Jim goes on to write,

Mabel immediately created a shrine to Rudolph Valentino in the front window of her photography studio on State street, and it remained there until she retired. Immediately created a shrine to Rudolph Valentino in the front window ever for photo studio at state street. And it remained there until she retired.<\em>

Okay, I’ll stop reading from there, but I really encourage you to go and read a little bit more about what happened, with the funeral, how Mabel started selling photographs of Valentino, as a way to make money.

She also starts to put together pamphlets and books on Valentino, including stills from his movies, and she starts a fan club (Jim has a photo of her with members of the club at an event.)

It really is a fascinating story.

I never really knew much about Valentino until I read Jim’s post. Mabel Sykes was a huge fan of the star, celebrating and promoting Rudolph Valentino through her photography for a number of years there in Chicago, both before and after his death.

Again the name of Jim Craig’s blog is Under Every Tombstone; URL is undereverytombstone “dot” blogspot “dot” com. If you go there and look for Mabel Sykes, you’ll find the post; just go to the episode notes for this episode, I’ll have the link there. Check it out – you’ll be able to go directly to see all these wonderful photos and other material about Mabel Sykes and her connection with Valentino.

So, after Valentino’s death, in the late 20s and early 30s, what was happening with Mabel? Jer business was going really strong and in the late twenties, she was running her studios in both locations. She was then also running the fan club and Valentino memorials, too.

Things were going fairly well, until she started to have some issues to deal with in her personal life.

For example, 1929 was a difficult year. That is the year she files for divorce from her second husband. This divorce does not get as much coverage in the newspapers as her first one, but there are still notices about it. What Mabel claims in her divorce suit is that her second husband was cruel — had actually threatened [the lives] of both her and her father. Mabel gets the divorce and goes back to being “Mabel Sykes”, not “Mrs Barsanti” anymore.

But unfortunately over the next couple of years, things take an increasing sad personal turn with her family. At this point, she’s single again (having just divorced her 2nd husband), but her parents are both still alive, as are her three brothers.

But her father is hit by a street car in Chicago in 1930 and killed. One of her younger brothers blames himself for their father’s death. It’s not clear from any of the newspaper articles exactly why he blames himself, but he does, and he sinks into a deep depression. He ultimately commits suicide.

And then Mabel’s mother dies in the late 1930s, and her other brothers each die fairly young over the next decade.

By 1932, there’s already been some pretty big upheaval in Mabel’s family. So maybe it’s not surprising that at that point, Mabel decides to retire. She sells her business to the Marshall Studi, and, uh, closes up shop.

Except … what’s not clear is that there are photos that still surface in the newspapers into into the late 1930s, after her studio’s been closed, where the credit is still “Photo by Mabel Sykes.” But maybe those photos were taken earlier.

Still… it’s not really clear exactly what she does for the next few decades, but uh, she is still at Chicago in directories at least somewhat.

And so it’s really interesting to try to track down a little bit more about her at some point. I still haven’t managed to find very much yet, but I’m still optimistic that we’ll find more stuff about this later period in her life.

When she retires, there’s a notice in the newspaper said she’d been running that Mabel Sykes studio for 25 years, which pretty counts the time when she was married to Melvin, I believe.

But all we can do after that is fast forward to 1963, when we discover a little notice in the Chicago newspaper that Mabel Sykes, “who once ran a commercial photography studio here in Chicago has passed away”. Regarding where she’s buried: her parents had gotten divorced after Mabel was an adult, but there was a story in the newspapers — around the time of her 1914 divorce from Melvin, that says after the parents divorced, their sons sided and lived with their father, and Mabel sided her mother.

At one point, her mother actually even lived with Mabel, I think, between her marriages.

When her mother dies, she’s buried in one part of the cemetery and Mabel’s father is buried in a different part of the cemetery. When their sons die, they’re buried near their father. But when Mabel dies, she’s buried near their mother.

I find it interesting that the split loyalties continued like that after death, and they aren’t all buried together.

So thatwraps up today’s tale of Mabel Sykes. She’s a very popular and super successful photographer in Chicago. When family tragedy strikes, though, it seems like it takes the wind out of her sales professionally, and so she retires.

Her triumphs professional – and interesting side stories personally – make for a fascinating story. It’s always fabulous to figure out what can happen when you take a chance for $1 on a photo that lists no location, but does have the name of a woman. In this case, of course, a woman named Mabel Sykes.

*****

As always I’ll share that $1 photo by Mabel Sykes in the episode notes for today’s episode, along with some of the other clippings I mentioned.

I will of course also share the link to Jim Craig’s wonderful blog post about Mabel Sykes and her connection to Rudolph Valentino. It includes more details about her start – and her divorce from Melvin Sykes, plus some wonderful photographs that Jim found on ebay, photographs that you’re just not going to find anywhere else because they were part of her personal collection.

The episode notes for the podcast will be on my website, which is p3photographers “dot” net.

If you have any questions or just want to drop me a line, write to me at podcast “at” p3photographers.net.

And remember to check out the project Facebook page at facebook.com/p3photographers. I have been posting some news there on and off; I’ll try to include a little bit of those news and notes, in the next podcast episode as well.

Anyway, that’s it for today.

Here’s the CDV that Chris and I found that started our quest for information about Lydia J. Cadwell:

As discussed in the podcast episode, Mrs. Cadwell was a talented inventor, holding at least 5 u.S. patents as well as 2 Canadian patents. Here’s the first page of her general patent for “desiccating substances” , granted in 1881:

Regarding her marble mining venture, you can see a photo of the green Riccolite marble on this website.

Finally, this sketch appears as part of the long obituary about Lydia Cadwell in the Chicago Tribune, Jan 1896:

The full text of her obituary in the Chicago Tribune is available here (on newspapers.com – requires free trial account or paid subscription

Here’s a link to one of the photos of Frederick Douglas taken that day in January 1875 by Lydia J. Cadwell of the Gentile Gallery in Chicago:

The book Picturing Frederick Douglass by John Stauffer has 3 photos by Lydia J. Cadwell reproduced in it.

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, we meet a woman of many talents, the phenomenal Lydia J. Cadwell.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Hi, everybody! Welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols. As we kick off season six today, I want to introduce you to Lydia J Cadwell, an extraordinary woman from the 1800s who rightfully could be called a type of Renaissance woman. Not only was she a successful photographer in Chicago, in the 1870s, she was also an influential patron of the arts, a writer, a poet, and also an inventor holding at least five patents for inventions that had nothing to do with art or photography.

Her story intertwines, not only with a U.S. president, but also with an American social reformer, writer, writer, abolitionist and statesman who was one of the most photographed men in the mid 1800s and who famously only had one photo taken by a woman: and that woman was Lydia J Cadwell.

Now, I think I may have mentioned it before, but I always find it oddly exciting when I run across a really informative obituary about one of these women. So imagine how excited I was when I discovered that when Lydia J Cadwell died in January of 1896, the Chicago Tribune published almost a full column obituary about her, profiling her life and her accomplishments.

As Chris and I started to piece together other bits of information from other records online, as well as other contemporary news articles, well, it turned out that some of the details about her personal life in that obituary were a little bit more complicated than you might think from reading the obituary.

But amazingly all of the incredible accomplishments of Lydia Cadwell that are listed in her obituary are actually true. And … there’s even more to her accomplishments than the obituary lists.

So without further ado, let’s just dive into the story of Lydia J Cadwell, who was a woman who really packed a lot of living into her 59 years.

Lydia J. Doty was born on February 3rd, 1837. She was the daughter of Henry Doty who was actually a descendant of the family of John Quincy Adams, one of the U.S. Presidents. According to that 1896 obituary for Lydia, she had worn, until her death, a ring that that had been presented to her by John Quincy Adams when she was a little girl. The story was that he received it from an Italian Prince.

I looked it up, and John Quincy Adams died in 1843, and Lydia was born in 1837.

So it is possible that, John Quincy Adams met little Lydia and gave her that ring. And it is possible that she actually did wear it for the rest of her life.

Unfortunately, there’s no trace I could find online of any story about John Quincy Adams receiving a ring from an Italian Prince. But, that story is there in the obituary — and it is a really cute little story.

But I want to leave Lydia after she gets that ring, and fast forward up to 1870. Lydia is at this point living in Grand Rapids, Michigan with her teenage daughter, Ella.

Now I’m getting this information from the 1870 census where Lydia is listed as a 31-year-old widow living with her 15-year-old daughter, as I said, Ella, and also their 17-year-old “domestic servant”, a woman named Betsy Blank.

Lydia is listed in 1870 as “keeping house”. In other words, she doesn’t have an outside occupation that’s listed. And her age there is a little bit off. She should have been more like 34, not 31, but that really isn’t that surprising because we run across a lot of people who seem to become miraculously a little bit younger in their census listings.

Where I really want to pick up Lydia’s story is a little bit later in the 1870s. By that point, she’s living in Chicago and she’s working as a photographer.

Unfortunately, the Chicago directories that are available online have some gaps in that period of the early 1870s. So I can’t pinpoint exactly when Lydia started her career in photography in Chicago.

And Chris and I haven’t really been able to figure out if she actually did any photography prior to going to Chicago in the early 1870s.

But definitely Lydia is working for a photographer in Chicago named Charles Gentile, and she’s working at his studio, which is named the Gentile studio. That’s in Chicago, I said, in the early 1870s.

Later on in the 1870s, Lydia will actually become the co owner of that studio with Mr. Gentile. And then she takes it over completely by 1878.

But even before 1878, Lydia Jake Cadwell has already built a reputation for the quality of her work. She’s particularly sought after by people who come to see her — people who want to have their portraits taken by her.

That’s the case in January of 1875. On January 5th, 1875, a rather famous man come sto call, a man named Fredrick Douglass, who was that orator, statesman, and abolitionist that I mentioned. Well, he comes to Chicago (he’s going to give a talk there). And according to his biographies, he detours over to the Gentile studio to have his photo taken by Mrs. Cadwell, because he had heard of her reputation and her skill.

There are at least three photos that were taken that day at the Gentile Studio by Lydia Cadwell. And they are reproduced in biographies written in the last few years about Frederick Douglas. I’ll put some links in the episode notes, so you can find them.

Now the Tilley’s duty was clearly very popular there in Chicago, not just because mrs. Cadwell’s famous, but they have a lot of articles in the paper promoting stuff that they’ve got going on.

In 1876, the year after Frederick Douglas was there, there’s a big article in the Chicago Tribune that says that the Gentile gallery had on display wat was termed a massive 72 inch by 44 inch photo of the First Regiment. That First Regiment of soldiers, according to the article, is represented after the breaking of the ranks after the last formal review of the soldiers, in South park in Chicago.

Let me just read you a little bit of that story to get a sense of what this was all about.

Again, this is from an article Chicago Tribune on June 4th, 1876. So the description of the photo is as follows,

This mammoth picture, which covers an area of 72 by 44 inches is a photographic view of the first regiment and represents the scene of the breaking of the ranks at the last review on the South Park.

There are over 400 figures, grouped in most lifelike postures in the center; foreground it’s the officers

(and it names all the generals on either side) …

and to the rear almost as far as the eye can reach are the men and noncommissioned officers of the regiment, picturesquely grouped, while stacks of arms and piles of drums, and the two regimental flags — beautifully draped — relieve the scene in a very artistic manner.

Each figure is a separate photograph and no two have the same pose. These photographs have been graduated in size so as to thoroughly meet the laws of perspective, and all have been so mounted as to produce a perfectly harmonized whole.

So in other words, this giant photograph is actually a giant composite of multiple photographs, at least more than 400, since there are more than 400 people represented all “carefully placed” so as to look like they were actually taken as a snapshot of people on the field. But in fact, it’s actually composed, and according to the newspaper article, the person who composed that scene was actually Mrs. L J Cadwell, the “cashier” of the gallery.

Now it terms her the “cashier” of the gallery, but we know from the directories and from other articles that she actually was also a photographer at the gallery. So this is a very special photo that the Gentile gallery really promotes as being something special and something that people should come to see in their gallery.

It’s really kind of intriguing that she was doing this kind of composite work in addition to their other kinds of cabinet photos and that kind of things in the 1870s, because we also did see this with Hannah Maynard (a woman who was in Victoria, British Columbia, who I profiled on a previous episode). Well, Hannah Maynard was doing composite photography, but actually a little bit later than the 1870s; Maynard was doing it, I believe in the 1880w.

So anyway, so Mrs. Cadwell is very, very popular and very well known as a really good photographer and artist in terms of creating this artistic composite scene of figures and drums, et cetera.

Now, as I said, at this point, Lydia is partnered with Gentile, but she eventually buys him out. And by 1877, we find her in the directories as the sole proprietor of the stuido that’s now billed as “Gentile & Co”.

And then, in 1878, Lydia is not only running the Gentile photographic studio, but she’s also opened an art gallery called the Lydian art gallery. The Lydian art gallery showcases artists from all different kinds of media. I mean, not just the photographers, but painters and sculptors, et cetera. She is organizing exhibitions by these artists and sponsoring their work.

These art exhibitions by Mrs. Cadwell become quite legendary there in Chicago. Really a high society event. She has a very fancy advertising and invitations that get sent out. According to her obituary, at some of these parties she would host a 1000 people.

I’m not sure that I can verify the numbers of people who are at these openings, but I can verify in the newspaper articles that these were just the pinnacle of the art world there in Chicago in the 1870s. And by the early 1880s, that Gentile photography studio, plus the Lydian art gallery (which are actually co located in the same building) — well, they are still going strong. I mean, mrs. Coldwell is really well known and influential in art circles in Chicago.

And eventually she’s even credited as being one of the founders of the Chicago rt Institute.

So she’s very powerful and very much a force within the art world in Chicago.

But even though she’s so involved with photography and art, that isn’t her own area of involvement during this period, she gets involved with other creative endeavors, not just visual arts, but she also does a lot of writing, particularly poems.

Two of her poems actually become quite famous. One is a tribute to a bouquet of flowers that she received when she was about to embark on a European tour. And then one of her other famous poems was actually one that was a tribute to a famous singer who loved that bouquet poem so much that she commissioned to have it set to music.

There’s also this other curious mention of her poetry.

If I take us back to March of 1875, remember that in January of 1875 is when she photographs of Frederick Douglass. In March of that year, there’s an article in the paper that she has been made an honorary member of the National Egg and Butter Association.

Now this was a time when the National Egg and Butter Association did not permit women to be members. So the fact that a woman has just been made an honorary member is actually quite a big deal [in 1875]. The following year, The coverage of that year’s annual meeting says that Mrs. Cadwell reads an original poem at the meeting called “My Past and Present.””

And according to the notice in the paper, her reading of her poem was met with “such rapturous applause that the lady was obliged to respond with a second original poem before she was allowed to return to her seat.”

Alright. So she’s really quite talented and well-regarded as a poet; this is at the same time she’s well-regarded and famous for her photography.

And of course it’s just around the time when she’s thinking of getting her Art Gallery going. Lydia Cadwell has a lot going on when it comes to creative endeavors.

But if I go back to the 1875 article, when she’s made an honorary member of the Butter and Egg society … well, I don’t know why she was made the honorary member.

But I can tell you that it was around that time she files an application for a patent on a process to desiccate or dehydrate eggs. Now she actually was awarded that patent in the early 1880s.

And it turns out that’s just one of many patents that Lydia received, not just in the U S but in Canada as well. All of her patents involve some sort of desiccating or dehydrating things: eggs, slops, grain.

I think Chris located the 5 US patents online, and there are two more that we’ve found in Canada which were from the period of the 1870s all the way up through the 1880s.

One of those patents actually led to the creation of a wheat drying machine. And that was such a successful and popular machine that some rather “unscrupulous people” tried to steal the patent and then the machine patent from her. But according to her obituary, it says that she was on to their tricks, and she headed them off by getting a controlling stock in a company that made that machine. Good for her!

And really, if that wasn’t enough of another sideline … at some point, she becomes the owner of land in New Mexico that becomes famous because they find what’s called Riccolite marble. This green marble continues to be sold and continues to be quite popular even today.

But back in the late 1800s, it was apparently very popular and very profitable.

Again, I want to emphasize that all of these things are in addition to her success in the art world, both with photography and her art gallery.

She was really quite a woman of many talents. I mean, so we have evidence that she was a poet, inventor, art patron. Among the talented women that we’ve run across, there are very few that have all of these things combined. But we find them all in Lydia J Cadwell. Chris and I have been able to confirm that all of these facts are true.

So, she’s really quite striking.

But you may have noticed that I haven’t really talked much about her personal life other than the fact that she was married at some point, obviously. And then in 1870, she’s listed as widowed with a teenage daughter. Okay. So this is where it gets a little bit tricky …

Lydia J. Doty grows up in New York state. And at some point she meets and marries a man named George w Cadwell. Now, according to her 1896 obituary tragedy struck right after the wedding, and she was left a widow at the age of 19. She then moved to grand Rapids, Michigan, where she lived for several years after she was widowed.

Again, this is according to her obituary.

Nowm she was born in 1837. So if she had been widowed around at the age of 19, that would mean that George Cadwell would have died around 1856.

And that is a very tragic story; it’s certainly very remarkable and compelling.

The problem is … it’s not at all true! Because George doesn’t die until 1885, and he’s actually been married again (and actually widowed) [Note: the audio incorrectly says George was married to his second wife at the time of his death]

So the real story is that Lydia files for divorce for George in 1871.

So she’s not widowed at the age of 19.

We in fact, find them living together in Oneida New York in the 1860 census, along with their daughter, Ella who’s 4.

Now, as I mentioned earlier in 1870 census, Lydia is living in Grand Rapids with her daughter, Ella, and George is no longer on the scene. [But he’s not dead.]

But Lydia lists herself as a widow in 1870. So it turns out that when she says she’s a “widow”, it’s what Chris likes to call a “widow?! because of course she’s actually not widowed. Now George and Lydia do get divorced and she does file for divorce any 71, but Ella continues to live with Lydia until George remarries.

And at that point it seems like Ella goes to live with her father. After that 1870 census, when Ella is living living with Lydia, we don’t actually find any other mention of Ella ever living with Lydia in Chicago. And in fact, in Lydia’s obituary in 1896, there’s no mention that Lydia has a daughter, even though Ella survives into the 20th century.

So it’s really kind of intriguing that at some point, whether it was when she became a photographer, or maybe it was when Ella moved out and moved with in with her father, that Lydia created a narrative for herself that was a little bit different from what reality was.

And, you know, I can respect that she wanted to reinvent herself. But it really is intriguing wanting to know, you know, what happened there and what was the story?

I mean, Ella, unfortunately is always described as an invalid. And so she needed a lot of care and always needed to have a companion. And when her father dies, i.e. when George Cadwell dies in 1885, he actually is pretty prominent where he’s living and his estate is detailed in the press. And it turns out that he leaves his entire fortune to his daughter, not to his son from his second marriage.

So interesting, intriguing … but that’s a complete side story because we have digressed away from Lydia.

So what I really want to talk about of course is Lydia. And that’s why it’s really hard to piece together elements of her personal story. But her professional story and all of her accomplishments, what is fascinating is that that can be confirmed, that she was involved with all these different things and had such success in so many of them.

OK.

So when last we saw Lydia, she was operating the Lydian gallery and the Gentile studio for photography. We’re in Chicago in 1882, where she just gotten at least one patent and life is going well.

And that is when tragedy does strike. On December 28th, 1882, on a day that was described as a cold winter day with ice on the sidewalks, Lydia J Cadwell slips and falls and hits her head. According to newspaper articles that are written in her lifetime, she is gravely injured by that, and she’s left with what is usually described in the papers as “an abscess on the brain.” She loses her hearing, and it is said because of that, she actually gives up her art: she sells her studio and her gallery.

Now that’s 1883, 1884 around that time.

And according to obituary, tt’s at that time that she turns to the scientific inventions But in fact, we know that the dates on her patents, and on that egg machine definitely, all indicate that she was already doing that prior to her fall in 1882.

So yes, she really was a woman who could coordinate many different interests and do them all well until her fall. And then, you know, she withdraws from the art world, but she has still has a lot of success and makes money apparently with those patents and the inventions, as well as that marble company, etc.

But apparently the fall really did leave her severely injured and she never fully recovered from those injuries. And so, in January of 1896, unfortunately she passes away, and they blame her death on the injuries she suffered in 1882.

She was only 59 years and she left quite a large estate, but she died intestate. So there are actually articles in the paper about how people are trying to do to shore up the estate, and about who is applying to become executor, etc. There were no bequests to any family members – and as I said, her daughter is never mentioned in any of the articles.

So it is a rather tragic end in terms of that fall and the fact that she gave up the photography and the arts, or at least the art gallery. But during her remaining years, she continued to be a popular figure and still involved in the art world, at least on the sidelines.

She is celebrated in Chicago up until 1896 when she passes away. As I said, her death rates a rather large obituary with a big headline.

But it was really intriging to try to figure out exactly what was going on with Lydia J. Cadwell. How did she become a photographer? How did she become an inventor? How did she become interested in inventing a machine to dehydrate eggs? I really would love to know a lot more about her story. And maybe someday we’ll run across some more information about her.

But, for the moment, I think I just want to celebrate this woman that we ran across by buying a small CDV. The photo had the name of the Gentile studio and the Lydian Art Gallery on the back, along with the name of the photographer who ran both of those things: the fabulous woman named Lydia J Cadwell.

*****

There are a lot of different kinds of materials to share with you about Lydia J Cadwell and you’ll find links and other photos, et cetera, on the website as usual, which at p3photographers “dot” net. Remember that’s letter “p” number “3”””, photographers “dot” net. If you have any questions or just want to drop me a line, write to podcast at p3photographers “dot” net.

Remember you can also contact me through the Photographs, Pistols & Parasols on Facebook page at facebook.com/p3photographers.

I really want to thank everyone who contacted me over the last couple of months with questions and suggestions. Really. I have many intriguing paths to explore that have been opened up through your messages.

And I’ll be addressing some of your questions and providing some more information about some of the women you’ve asked; look for that over the next few months here on the podcast.

But in the meantime, I thought Lydia J Cadwell would be a great woman to kick off Season 6. For the resst of this season, I’m going to be profiling various women who were in Chicago or New York, including some who were in both Chicago and New York; as well as women over the West Coast.

So we’ll be discovering a lot of different women over the next few months who, as always, will all be talented early women photographers, artisan photographers all.

Also one final note. My husband, Chris, who as listeners of the podcast know, works with me on this project.

He’s actually started his own blog where he sometimes talks about some of these early women photographers. His blog address is blog dot chrisculy dot net. That’s B L O G “dot” C H R I S C U L Y “dot” net. At the moment, he’s in the middle of a 5-part series that describes the kind of deep dive that he and I do when we’re trying to find information about women like Lydia Cadwell; he’s describing how we look at newspapers and ancestry.com and all kinds of other materials.

He has a fun way of explaining all the different twists and turns one of our deep dives can take. So I really encourage you to check it out.

But that’s it for today. Thanks as always for stopping by!

Until next time, I’m Lee, and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Transcript:

Hi everybody!

I hope you are all staying safe and keeping healthy in the crazy times we’re living in.

Today is just a quick note to let you know that I’m taking a summer hiatus from the podcast and won’t be doing new Photographs, Pistols & Parasols episodes in July or August

Look for all new podcast episodes to start again September 1st.

In the meantime, remember you’ll find the episode notes for all the podcast episodes on over on my my website at p3photographers.net. That’s letter p, number 3, photographers “dot” net. The episode notes include transcripts for most of the episodes, plus examples of photographs by the women featured on the podcast to date, plus other materials relating to the women’s careers.

Also, remember you can follow Photographs, Pistols & Parasols on Facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

Or, if you have any questions or just want to drop me a line, send an email to podcast “at” p3photographers dot net.

So, since this is the official end to Season 5 on Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, it’s a good time to pause for a quick round of thanks. First, I’d like to thank everyone who has been such a faithful supporter and promoter of this project! I really appreciate all your continuing support and encouragement, plus all the emails, photos, and assorted female photographer materials that you’ve sent my way.

A special thanks to Stan for his support as well as his financial contributions, which help fund our collection of photos taken by some of these early women photographers. .

And, a very special thank you my husband, Chris Culy, for contributing his technical expertise as well as his research and fact-finding skills to help uncover all the fascinating tidbits about these photographers and their lives.

It’s really a pleasure for me to continue to share the stories about all of these talented early women photographic entrepreneurs. I really couldn’t do it without all of you, so many, many thanks for your continued support.

Anyway, I hope you’ll all join me agian on September 1st when I launch Season 6 of Photographs, Pistols & Parasols. Stay safe and take care. See you on September 1st!

Here’s the beautiful photo by Mrs. M.E. Mater-Smith of the Mater Art Studio that Chris and I found:

And here are a few of the Mater Art Studio ads:

Regarding the hats, here’s an ad for Mrs. Mater-Smith’s millinary shop from 1908:

I can only assume the hat in in this illustraiton of a “College Widow” is what is meant by a College Widow Hat:

Compare that to the Merry Widow Hat:

The Fashion Folks website has a nice writeup about the Merry Widow Hat to get a quick history of the hat.

This is the hat which causes such a stir that it’s banned in some places in 1908. There are numerous articles throughout 1908 like this one from the St. Louis Dispatch on May 5th of that year, outline all the potential plusses  and pitfalls of wearing a merry widow hat. The article is quite long, but here are the highlights:

By the way, in the episode I mention the coincidence of another women photographer, Julia Bottomley, who’s career also was from photography > millinery. Mrs. Bottomley and Mrs. Mater-Smith could have crossed passed in Pueblo, Colorado in the later 1880s and early 1890s. You can learn more about Julia Bottomley here in this episode on some Colorado photographers.

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, we’re going to meet the marvelous Mrs Mater-Smith, a photographer from Chanute, Kansas.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p”, number “3”, photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols. I hope this finds you all doing well and staying healthy in this crazy times we’re living with right now.

In today’s episode, I want to take you back over a hundred years to introduce you to a woman named Mary Elizabeth Mater-Smith. She’s an astute business woman who was able to overcome several setbacks in order to support her family of five children in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Mary Elizabeth Starkey was born on December 31, 1857 in a place called Looking Glass, Illinois.

In 1874, just a week before her 17th birthday, she marries a man named A.G. Mater. Now, A.G. Mater is a “grocery drummer” – and if you’re like me, you may never have heard that term before. But a grocery drummer is just a grocery traveling salesman. Drummer, as it turns out in the 19th century, was a common way to refer to a traveling salesman.

The Maters are living in Chanute, Kansas, raising their family, which by 1895 includes three childre, with a fourth on the way. Sadly though, in January of 1885. A.G. Mater is stricken with what is described in the newspapers as either a congestive lung problem or a congestive brain problem.

Whatever it is, it’s serious. A.G. Mater dies at the end of January, 1895. Less than two weeks later, his youngest child, son A.G. junior, is born.

So Mary Mater is left in early 1885 as a young widow with four children, including the baby who was born after her husband died. She’s got a feed this family, and she is less than 30 years old herself.

Fortunately, A.G. Mater actually had some insurance.

Now it’s not clear if the insurance was just for life insurance, or whether it was some sort of accident policy, like an accidental injury policy. The newspapers – in his obituary – talk about the fact that in late 1884, he had actually suffered an accident and fractured his arm and had been unable to work.

So really, in January of 1885, he was just getting back to work when he was stricken down with an illness.

The newspaper accounts don’t say why, but before they would pay out any money the insurance companies insisted on exhuming his body!

They actually exume the body in March of 1885, but by April it’s all settled. and they agreed to pay out on the policies, at least a total of $7,000.

Now I looked it up, and $7,000 in 1885 would have the buying power of about $185,000 in 2020. So that’s a lot of money.

But remember, Mrs Mater is a very young widow with four children to support, and that’s not going to be really enough money to keep her going for the rest of her life. So she invests into buying some land and building a house big enough to take in some borders.

That becomes very successful. And in the late 1880s eighties and early 1890s, there notices in the paper that she and her children are going back and forth between Chanute, Kansas, where they live, and Pueblo or other parts of Colorado where her relatives live, including Mrs Mater’s mother.

One thing I find intriguin, though, is that it’s not that she goes there in the summer when Kansas is beastly hot. BUt Mrs Mater and the children often winter in Colorado. Maybe they just really liked the mountains?

In any case, by 1892 Mrs Mater has brought her entire family back to Chanute, Kansas, where she buys a photography studio and then renames it the Mater Art Studio.

Up to this point, there’s been no mention of anyone in Mrs Mater’s family ever having been a photographer, neither her brother (who also lives in Chanute) nor anyone who lives in Colorado.

But it’s intriguing that in Pueblo, Colorado, in the early 1890s, there is a woman named Julia Bottomley.  And as I’ll mention in a moment, it’s intriguing to speculate that there might be some sort of connection or inspiration coming from Julia Bottomley in her career that helps inspire some of what happens with Mrs Mater.

Alright, so in 1892 Mrs Mater has bought that studio and renamed it the Mater Art Studio. But then in June of 1893, after taking out some splashy ads in 1892 and early 18993 for her studio, she actually announces that a man named Gregg is going to come in and start taking over that space with his studio. He takes out a lot of ads saying that he’s going to do just that.

But then there’s a big editorial against him in July of 1893 that really lambastes him for lying about doing the photography himself, and saying that he’s actually sending it out to be printed in another town, and this is horrible way to do business.

And so you can only speculate that this was going to be very negative publicity for his business, but he does keep limping along there in Chanute with his studio in Mrs Mater’s building until November of 1893 when there’s a huge fire in town. That building, along with several others there in town, all burn to the ground.

Now, Mrs Mater is willing to help Gregg and actually gives him some support for setting up again, but not in Chanute. Because, you see, she reopens the Mater Art Studio in herself, and Gregg doesn’t really come back to town until a little bit later.

But I’m getting ahead of myself because as I said at the beginning, this woman’s name is Mrs Mater-Smith. And so, you’re probably wondering, well, where did the “Smith” come from?

You see as it turns out, in December of 1893 Mrs Mater marries a man named W.H. Smith, but she doesn’t just change her name to just Smith, she actually uses the hyphenated Mater-Smith.

And, when she reopens the Art Studio, she reopens it as Mater Art Studio, but now she’s Mrs M E Mater-Smith running the studio.

So it’s intriguing to me that. Like Mrs. Vreeland —  if you think back to her in an earlier podcast episode —  the idea of the brand, the importance of the brand name, is really key here.

So, since the Mater Art Studio had apparently gained enough of a reputation before her marriage to W. H. Smith, she maintains that brand even as she changes her name to the hMater-Smith.

Now, I have to say that Mrs Mater-Smith does have this intriguing relationship with this photographer named Gregg because she helps him, as I said, set up after he’s burnt out in 1893. But then runs the [rebuilt] studio herself in 1884.

But then after a short time apparently she is feeling comfortable enough to rent out the studio again and help Gregg get established his feet again after the big fire.

And life goes along for a couple of years, where she is getting income from her rental properties with the boarders, and she’s getting income from renting her studio out. But then she’s not actually actively working at any job herself … until W. H. Smith’s business starts to falter.

And when I saw falter, I mean fail — because he has problems with creditors.

There are notices in the newspaper that creditors are going to have to apply to get their money if they want it, but they have to come after him [W.H. Smith] if they want it.

Clearly he’s having a lot of money problems.

So maybe it’s not so surprising that in parallel with those notices about W.H. Smith’s creditors there are notices about Mrs Mater-Smith going back into the photography business. She’s taking the studio back; she’s it running herself, and she’s making a big success of it!

Remember, she had four children from her first marriage, and by this time she and W.H. have actually had another daughter, meaning five children to support at home.

And W.H. Smith’s business is really not doing well at all. It goes completely under.

So Mrs Major-Smith comes back to photography; she subsequently runs that gallery until 1904, when she announces that the Mater Art Studio will be closing.

But up until then … she’s taken out splashy ads, making a good business out of it.

And when that other photographer, Gregg, finally does close for good later, like in the late 1890s she actually takes his negatives. Right up until she closes in 1904, she has ads in the newspaper saying that if anyone wants reprints from the Greggg studio, they should just come see her.

OK. So in 1904, Mrs Mater-Smith announces she’s closing the mayor Art Studio, getting out of the photography business and seemingly retiring for good.

Except … W.H. Smith has gone into another business. And again, it doesn’t do so well. So by around 1906, Mrs Mater-Smith announces that she is back in business … except it’s a different business, because now instead of photography, she’s actually gone into millinery. You know, making hats.

From the end of the first decade of the 19th century, up until the early 1910s, Mrs Mater-Smith’s millinery business is now the hot business in town.

She’s taken out big splashy ads about how she’s got the best trimmers hired and all kinds of the latest things. Periodially, she’s going to Chicago, she’s going to Kansas City to see all the latest fashions.

In 1908 for example, she takes out a big ad that her military shop now has the =shapes available forthe both Merry Widow and the College Widow hats.

Right. I just want to pause here because I was like, wait, okay, Merry Widow hats. So that I figured was related to the Merry Widow operetta. I mean, I know the Marriott had a wall sky, and I kind of know about the operetta, but I know that there’s usually a big hat involved with lots of feathers and things like that.

But the College Widow hats were something new for me. And it was also just a surprise to see these such ads for the Merry Widow hats. So I did a little digging and it turns out that the Merry wWdow hats were actually really kind of controversial.

I mean, they caused riots almost in the way that they got banned in certain churches and places.

There were all these things in the newspapers about all the benefits of the Merry Widow hat and/or the problems that you’d have if you were wearing one. There was one great story that a woman got stuck on a train. Essentially she didn’t have the hat on when she boarded the train, but when she went to leave the train, she’d put the hat on, and the hat was so wide they couldn’t figure out how to get her off the train because her hat was wider than the hallway.

Someone finally suggested that she take the hat off and she does that and is able to exit the train.

But then there’s another church that ban the hats from being worn in church because they block the view of the minister if the people in the front pews are wearing the Merry WIdow Hats, since they’re so big.

Now, some churches ban them outright. For example, there was a church that said that men could smoke during the service, but women could not wear the Merry Widow hats cause it was too disruptive.

But then there was another church story that said that because there were these women wearing Merry Widow hats in the front pews lives were saved by preventing a panicked stampede when a fire broke out on the alter, and the alter boys and the priest actually had to figure out how to quickly put out that fire. The account of it in the newspaper said later that see nobody behind the women in the front pews even knew there was a fire, since no one could see behind those the women wearing those Merry Widow hats.

So see it Merry Widow hat could be a really good thing or not a good thing. So that’s Merry Widow hat.

Now that College Widow hat is another matter; that’s sort of an odd thing I had never heard of.

And so I looked it up. And so in Merriam Webster dictionary, a College Widow is defined “as a young woman in a College town who dates students of successive college classes.””

But I got to think that’s kind of a sort of negativeconnotation to that. So it was odd to see that there’s a hat associated with that.

But then I found in the Library of Congress archive a drawing of a woman in a, well, it looks like a small-scale Merry Widow hat. It’s not not quite as huge as the Merry Widow hat, but it has the same kind of feathers on it. And the woman in the drawing is described as a “College Widow””. So she’s in this hat, and then she’s surrounded by all of the College pennants representing all of the men that she’s dated?

Again, there’s no context for that in the Library of Congress archive, but I have a feeling that’s not a very positive connotation. But it is interesting to see how things were being advertised for women’s hats circa 1908.

All right. Now, well, getting back to Mrs Mater-Smith though, the point is she is a very successful milliner.

She runs that millinery studio in Chanute, Kansas, right up until 1911 when she takes an ad in the paper saying that she’s closing because of illness.

What’s happening is that her husband, W. H. Smith has become ill, and so she’s devoting a little more time to nursing him.

It’s interesting to note as well that her older children from her first marriage are by this point all grown, and most of them have gotten married, uh, at this point, or are about to get married.

In fact, I think one of them gets married in 1911 or 1912.

But some of her older children actually for a time at least, did actually work in her businesses. So when she had that Mater Art Studio, her son George and her daughter, Gertrude, also known as Amy, actually worked in the photography studios as photographers.

One of her other daughters, Ada, in 1910 is in the directory as working with her mother at the military shop.

So it’s kind of fun to see her children actually growing to adulthoo and then joining her in some of her businesses.

Now her youngest daughter is Susan Jesse Smith, who’s normally just called Jessie. She’s the daughter of W.H. and Mary Mater-Smith, the daughter of that second marriage.

So Jessie is still in high school in the early 1910s, but she has a very promising elocution and theatrical musical career.

And after maybe W. H.Smith recovers a bit, he and Mary are able to send Jessie to some special training in Kansas City. In fact, 1914 Mrs Mater-Smith and her daughter Jessie are off living in Kansas for a few months while Jesse is getting the specialized training. W. H. is living in a boarding house [in Chanute] while his wife and daughter are away.

Sadly, W. H. Smith collapses on the porch of the boarding house where he’s staying and is brought back inside. However, he’s either had a heart attack or some sort of stroke or some sort of seizure or something, and he doesn’t recover consciousness before he dies that afternoon.

His wife and his daughter are unable to get back to Chanute before he dies, unfortunately, arriving only in time for the funeral.

So Mrs Mater-Smith is left a widow yet again.

But at this point, she’s actually freer to start following Jesse Smith’s career, and Jesse Smith moves around quite a bit. She is in Manhattan, New York at one point, working as an editor, but also pursuing her theatrical and vocal careers. Because shortly thereafter she’s also back in Kansas City taking a job, teaching music in Kansas city.

And Mrs Mater-Smith follows her daughter there, too. And what’s interesting is that Mrs Mater-Smith at one point actually opens another a millinery shop, but this time in Kansas city. Jesse gets married several times and is sometimes known by her first married name, Schwenk. Jesse Smith Schwenk is the song described as “the songbird” ome of the newspaper articles that advertise her recitals, but by 1940 she and her mother are back living in Manhattan, New York City, where Jesse is working for a newspaper as an editor.

At that point in 1940 Mrs Mater-Smith is no longer listening to an occupation, just living with her daughter. In 1945. Mrs Mater-Smith passes away and is brought back to Chanute where she’s buried.

Chris and I were struck with the life story about the marvelous Mrs Mater-Smith, as I call her. Shee was just so resilient, so willing to roll up her sleeves and figure out a way to support her family. So when her second husband’s business falls apart — twice! — she’s able to figure out how to go back into business and make some money to support the family.

Obviously when she’s first left a widow, she also rolls up her sleeves and figures out what to do with the payout that she gets [from the insurance] so she could continue to get income to support her family. That’s before she decides to open that studio, of course.

And as I mentioned, I’m really intrigued by the similarities in her story going from photography to millinery and and the story of Julia Bottomley, a woman who was a photographer in Pueblo, Colorado.

I think it’s to think that Mrs Mater-Smith would have run across Julia Bottomley, the photographer in Pueblo, because Julia Bottomley, who I previously talked about on the podcast, actually did go from photography to millinery as well.

It’s always intriguing to see some of the connections and parallels between a lot of these women photographers. But Mrs. Mater-Smith is particularly compelling, since her career is one of the ups and downs but always demonstrating an astute ability to run a business and make money and be successful. She’s able to constantly reinvent herself in a way that we might expect in the 21st century someone to be an astute entrepreneur, but we might not have expected discover in the late 19th and early 20th century. Well, I certainly didn’t until I started diving into the women of this project, of course.

So that’s why I hope you join me in celebrating the career and life of Mrs Mary Elizabeth Mater-Smith.

*****

As always, I’ll be putting information on the website about some of Mrs Mater-Smith ads and career, as well as that beautiful picture that was produced by Mrs Mater-Smith in the Mater Art Studio. Chris and I were particularly excited to find this for sale at one point because it’s very rare to find any kind of photo produced by the Mater Art Studio.

So I’ll share that all on the website. Which is, as always, at p3photographers.net. That’s letter “p”, number “3” photographers “do” net.

Remember, you can always drop me an email: podcast “at” p3photgraphers.net.

And don’t forget to check out Photographs, Pistols & Parasols on facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

I also try to post any updates about the project and also any updates about other interesting women photographers that I see profiled elsewhere on the Internet. I post them on the Facebook page, so I hope you’ll check it out.

So that’s it for today.

Thanks as always for checking out the episode here on Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Again, I hope you’re all staying well and staying safe in these crazy times.

So, until next time, I’m Lee McIntyre, and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Photos by the Kneisle studio in Seattle

Read more about  1919 general union strike in Seattle here.

And here’s more about May 1st, the International Workers Day, aka. Labour Day in countries other than the U.S.

You’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Hi everybody. Just a quick note about today’s episode. I realized after I’d recorded it that I wasn’t consistent and how I pronounce the family name of the photographer I’m talking about today. The family name is spelled K, N, E, I, S, L, E. Now in German, that would be pronounced, I believe, [k-nee-sil]?

But in the American pronunciation of that last name, it’s conceivable that it pronounced either [nee-sil]or [nice-il]. As I said, I’m not consistent in what I use in this episode today; it just reflects my confusion about how to pronounce it.

I did live in Germany, so I’m probably influenced by what I think is the German pronunciation — but I tried to Americanize it and I think I didn’t always get the same Americanization.

Ah well. Once again, the last name of the photographer today is spelled K, N, E, I, S, L, E.  I’ll hope you bear with me since I have no idea how this photographer actually pronounced the last name.

Thanks!

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s May 1st episode, we’re marking  Labour Day by traveling to visit with one of the founders of the first AFL Photographers’ Protective Union in Seattle.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p” number “3” photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi everybody, and welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

Today I want to take you back to 1918. A successful 40 year old photographer is running a studio and is concerned about fair pay in the photography industry. That photographer then becomes the first vice president of the newly formed photographers’ union in Seattle to help pursue those concerns and fight for those fair pay issues.

After getting reelected in January of 1919, the photographer winds up on the front lines of the infamous Seattle labor strike that occurs later that year.

The photographer’s name?

Well, since you’re listening to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, it probably isn’t going to surprise you that the photographer is a woman: Janette Kneisle.

Janette Kneisle was a woman whose photography career wound up lasting more than 30 years. She was originally from New Brunswick, Canada. Her maiden name was Travis, but in 1885 she marries a man named Joseph J. Kneisle, and together they wind up moving first to Colorado, then to Portland, Oregon, before settling down in Seattle by 1915.

They were photographers earlier than that in Portland, and maybe also in Colorado before that. I haven’t really managed to track down their entire career yet, but certainly in 1915 the Kneisle studio is listed as being open and operating there in downtown Seattle.

Their studio is very popular: they do studio portraits, including some of visiting celebrities, including visiting musicians and otther popular figures who wind up getting their publicity shots taken at the Kneisles studio..

The Kneisles also work up quite a trade taking images of groups, including photos of the groups’ meetings, and/or including the annual meeting or the annual luncheons for the groups, that kind of thing.

It’s really intriguing in the late 1910s that when there are a lot of unions forming in Seattle, the Kneisle studio is at the forefront of taking pictures of the activities of those union groupsas well.

But, as I mentioned, one of the really striking things is that in 1918 it’s Janette Kneisle, not Joseph — who you might’ve thought would be the Kneisle involved in the photography union — but no, it’s Janette who is the Kneisle who becomes the first vice president of that organization. (And this is a time in Seattle when labor unions are becoming more and more prominent and more and more powerful, too).

The photographers’ union starts in 1918 but then in 1919 there is a very famous – or rather even infamous strike of all the labor unions here in Seattle.

It goes on for quite awhile, and it has a lot of popularity among the union members, but unfortunately the unions are forced to back down when a lot of factions argue against them and start to turn popular opinion against them as well.

What’s really intriguing for me to have discovered, though, was to realize that during this time period, a woman was actually able to have been at the forefront of some of these unions. That, of course, is exactly waht we find that with Janette Kneisle. Also, she’s very active as photographer, as well as in the photographer’s union. She’s active all the way into the 1920s when she’s unfortunately injured in a car accident (in 1924).

But the Kneisle studio continues to be listed in the Seattle directories through the 1930s. And in the 1940 census, both Joseph and Janette are still listed as doing photography, except Joseph is the one listed as running the studio downtown. Janette is listed as doing photography as a business, but from her home.

I said, I really haven’t had a chance to track down more information about them yet. Chris and I actually did look into this a few months ago, but we were kind of stymied by the [lack of] materials we could find online.

The University of Washington here has a very extensive achive of the Unions’ history in Seattle. Once we were able to go out and visit the UWn archives at some point in the future, hopefully we’ll be able to track down a little bit more about Janette and Joseph Kneisle.

But I did want to bring you the story today, because today ius May 1st, which is Labour Day all over the world, except just not here in the United States, of course.

But it is the International Labour Day.

And so I thought this was a great moment to celebrate the accomplishments and union activism of a woman named Janette Kneisle, a photographer for more than 30 years, ending her career here in Seattle, Washington.

In the episode notes for today, I’ll include a couple of images that I found on the Washington State Archives website.

Chris and I haven’t managed to find a photo [to buy] from the Kneisle studio yet, but we continue to look for that, along with looking for more information about this couple in general. But I’ll share what I’ve found so far in in the episode notes, which are — as always — on the website at p3photographers “dot” net. That’s letter “p”, number “3” photographers “dot” net.

You can also check out Photographs, Pistols & Parasols on facebook at facebook.com/p3photographers.

Do drop me a line if you have a question, or have the name of a woman photographer that you’d love to hear about. The email address is podcast “at” photographers.net.

So, that’s a quick one for today. Thanks as always for stopping by!

I hope that everyone is staying healthy and staying put in these crazy times. Chris and I are continuing to do research from home, looking as always to work with all the materials that are available online.

Until next time. I’m Lee, and this is Photographs, Pistols & Parasols.

This cabinet card is from the Crow studio in Astoria, Oregon, possibly during the period when Samuel and Matilda A. Swope were both running the studio. There’s no date on the photo.

In the audio of the episode, I misspoke; the second cabinet card from the Crow studio that  Chris and I own is from the Crow studio in Portland, Oregon, a studio Samuel B. Crow runs in the late 1890s and earkly 1900s. This is not the studio he co-ran with his daughter Minnie, but Minnie could have worked for her father at this studio before they ran the Crow and Crow  studio together.

We don’t have any examples of M.A. Swope’s photographs, but here’s that creative ad for her studio from the 1904 Astoria, Oregon directory:

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Support for this project is provided by listeners like you. Visit my website at p3photographers “dot” net for ideas on how you, too, can become a supporter of the project.

*****

Welcome to Photographs, Pistols & Parasols, the podcast where we celebrate early women artisan photographers.

I’m your host, Lee McIntyre.

In today’s episode, we meet M. A. Crow Swope and her daughter, Minnie Crow Bader Oliver. They were a mother and daughter,  both of whom were photographers and both of whom ran studios, but as near as I can tell, they never actually worked together.

For more information about any of the women discussed in today’s episode, visit my website at p3photographers.net.

That’s letter “p” number “3” photographers “dot” net.

*****

Hi everybody. Welcome back to Photographs, Pistols & Parisols.

Today I want to introduce you to a couple of the women that I mentioned in the lecture that I gave last month in Port Townsend, at the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum’s First Friday lecture series. I really want to thank the Jefferson County historical society museum for inviting me to give that talk.

It was great fun to go and introduce the audience to not just the women photographers that I’ve talked about here on the podcast from all over the country, but also to introduce them to a couple of early women photographers with connections to Port Townsend, Washington itself.

And one of the curious things is that the stories that I covered about one of the women who was active in Port Townsend actually started while I was looking into the story of one of the early male photographers in Oregon. By the 1910’s, this male photographer, Samuel B Crow, was active in Port Townsend. And I noticed that he opened his studio sometime in the early 1900s, but the exact date is actually a little bit hard to determine. Unfortunately the Port Townsend directories that survive from the early 1900shundreds have a bunch of gaps, and they don’t really start until 1907 when Samuel B Crow or “S.B.Crow”, as he was known, was active, in Port Townsend.

But in looking into his story, as I said, we started to discover that he actually has connections to a couple of women photographers. That first starts to emerge once we trace his story backwards to the 1880s when he’s active, not in Washington state, but in Oregon, in a little town called Astoria, Oregon. In Astoria, he’s running a studio in the 1880s and the 1890s, and where it starts to get really interesting is when it starts to emerge that he and his wife Matilda A. Crow, born Matilda Borg, were both running the studio in Astoria, Oregon. Well, at least by the 1890s they’re both running it together.

But then, as with so many of these stories, in the mid 1890s Samuel and his wife, Matilda, get divorced.

And the next thing you know though, Mrs. M. A. Crow is running that studio in Astoria, Oregon alone.

Now, Samuel sticks around for a while in Astoria, but then by 1900 he’s turning up in Portland, Oregon, running not one, but two different studios, one with his brother.

As for his ex-wife, Matilda: well, she does appear – i.e. she pops up in the directory in 1900 in Portland, but she’s still sort of still in Astoria, to running a studio. It’s a little hard to work out, as there are some gaps in the Astoria directories, but by 1902 she turns up re-married, to a man named John C Swope.

That’s in Astoria, Oregon, where John C Swope has become famous locally as a “sign painter”. Although, he’s really more of an artist, like a mural artist, that kind of big splashy side of the building kind of sign – I think that’s the kind of “signs” he’s painting. It’s tantalizing, though, because we can’t find any of the marriage records for Matilda and John Swope.

But they are definitely married by 1902, when she’s running the studio in Astoria, Oregon now under her married name. M a Swope. But she’s not using the “Mrs” title for her photography anymore. So, if you look in the directory, you don’t get the sense that M. A. Swope is a woman until you dig into the story. She’s what my husband, Chris, and I have started to call a “hidden woman photographer” in the directory.

Because when you look at the directory, you see M.A. Swope. You don’t realize that that’s a woman because she’s not listing herself as “Mrs” or by a name that’s clearly female.

Interestingly, in the newspapers around that time, it actually refers to a “Mr and Mrs Swope” as being the proprietors of a studio, that is briefly rebranded the Up-To-Date studio. That’s in Astoria Oregon.

But John C Swope is never referred to as a photographer anywhere else, except in this one little mention, and I’m just wondering if that was just for convenience that the newspaper decided that – well, he’s an artist, maybe they were both working out of that studio. But make no mistake – it’s Mrs Swope – i.e. M. A. Swope – who is the photographer in the family.

Now, she continues running that studio in Astoria until 1911, when unfortunately John C Swope passes away. The studio continues with M.A. Swope, proprietor; she’s a a widow of John C Swope and continuing to live and operate a photography studio there in Astoria until about 1920, when she suddenly disappears from the record for a few years.

Trying to trace her after that is a challenge. She pops up in Portland, Oregon in the mid 1930s, when it’s mentioned that “she’s too ill” to go to her mother’s funeral in Portland. M. A. is also living in Portland at the time. Someone on Ancestry.com says that she is the Matilda A. Swope who dies in Portland, Oregon in 1948. Unfortunately, the ancestry.com person who put that together doesn’t give any direct evidence as to why they think that that Matilda A. Swope is the Matilda A Swope who was in Astoria and who ran that studio was the widow of John S. Swope.

But I don’t have any evidence for or against it being her; it’s certainly plausible that the woman who dies in 1948 in Portland is the woman who had been the photographer.

As a photographer, she was a photographer with her husband, Samuel in Oregon in the 1880s and in the 1890s. She runs the studio in Astoria on her own starting in the mid 1890s, up until about 1920. So she as a fairly long career.

I’ll share in the episode notes of the great ads that’s from an Astoria directory in 1902; it’s a really cute, boxed ad with a little artistic drawing, for that Up-To-Date studio that she was running.

Anyway, that’s Mathilda A. Crow Swope’s story.

But as I said, looking into Samuel B. Crow’s story as a photographer uncovered two different female photographer stories.

One was his ex wife Matilda, and the other one was actually their daughter, Minnie Crow.

Now in 1900, Minnie Crow, at the age of only 17, is living with her aunt and uncle in Port Townsend. She, of course, would have been expected to be living with her parents in either Astoria, Oregon (where her mother was) or in Portland, Oregon (where her father is in 1900), but she’s not living in either one of those places.

She’s actually living with her aunt and uncle in Port Townsend, Washington,m where she is working as a photographer.

Now, it says she’s working as a photographer for someone else, but unfortunately there’s no surviving directory of Port Townsend from 1900, so we don’t know exactly who was running the photography studios in 1900, and so we dan’t tell who Minnie might have been working for.

Certainly, it seems like her father was still in Portland in 1900 and not necessarily running a studio yet in Port Townsend, but we just don’t know.

And it’s further intriguing to discover that by 1901 and 1902, we actually see that Samuel and Minnie, his daughter, are running a studio together: the Crow and Crow studio in Portland, Oregon.

Now that’s really interesting that she’s listed as running the studio there in Portland. under her name Minnie Crow. Because, we can tell separately from some other mentions in the newspaper that she is actually married at that point to a man named Bader in Port Townsend. She and Edward Bader have a son, Lavant Bader, who’s born in 1901.

So where was she really and what was she actually doing? What studio was she really running? I’m not quite sure, but I am confident that she was working as a photographer in this period.

If we fast forward a little bit of time to 1906, we see that the Baders have separated and divorced at that point, because Minnie Crow Bader, the photographer, is getting remarried to a man named Oliver, and she and Mr. Oliver are moving to California.

Looking for her in California as photographer only turns up the evidence of her in the 1910 census in San Francisco, when a Minnie Oliver, photographer, is living and working in San Francisco.

The problem is, according to the directories for San Francisco in 1910, we haven’t been able to find any trace of her. So maybe she just had just gotten to San Francisco in 1910 and listed herself as a photographer in the census, but hadn’t been there long enough to make it into the directory.

She also is listed in the census as being divorced from Mr Oliver, so that marriage apparently didn’t last very long either.

Now, when we try to find her in the 1911 directory in San Francisco, thinking, well, maybe she’d show up as a photographer working for someone or working on her own there, it turns out that tragically Minnie Crow Bader Oliver, at the age of less than 30 years old, passes away in 1911.

So that was quite sad to see. Her story is therefore cut short, and so we don’t have more evidence of where she worked as a photographer.

But it certainly is intriguing to run across these little bits and pieces of seeing that she worked with her father. And that her father actually moves to Port Townsend in sometime in the early 1900s when she’s living there, potentially as early as when she’s first married to her first husband and when she’s has her baby. H

After her remarriage, by the way, Minni’s baby stays in Port Townsend living with his father. Certainly Samuel Crow, the grandfather, is in Port Townsend until the late 1910s as well. So maybe that’s why he stuck around there – i.e. to be closer to his grandson.

But of course, this is all pure speculation.

All I can tell you for sure is that unexpectedly looking into Samuel B Crow or (S.B. Crow) in Port Townsend —— a place where he ran a studio for over 10 years ——looking into his story led us to not just one, but two different women photographers, women who were related to each other, but who, as I said in the teaser, never seem to have work together. While Minnie may have worked with her father, there is no evidence that she ever worked for or ran a studio with her mother in Astoria, Oregon.

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I n the episode notes, I’ll share a couple of cabinet cards, [one] by the Crow studio in Astoria  [and one by the Crow studio in Portland] that  Chris and I have run across. There’s no way to tell for sure who was running the studio called “Crow studio” in Astoria when the photograph were taken, because Sam B and his wife Matilda A Crow ran the studio in the 1890s in Astoria up until their divorce. And then the Crows were both running studios separately in Astoria of for a short time until Samuel moves to Portland.

Matilda A. Crow, when she is listed in the directories, is usually Mrs M A Crow in the 1890s. So it’s possible that’s how she branded the photos that she produced at that period. But I don’t know that for sure.

And, as for Minnie, of course, we don’t know exactly where she worked other than the Crow and Crow studio in Portland. [And so it’s likely that the Crow studio photo from Portland that we have was taken by Samuel].  And unfortunately we haven’t yet run across a Crow and Crow photograph … but I’m sure we’ll find one someday.

But I’ll include what we’ve got so far in the episode notes, plus that beautiful Up-To-Date studio ad of M.A. Swope from Astoria.

The episode notes as usual, will be on the website at p3photographers.net, that’s letter “p”, number “3” photographers.net.

Also, remember, you can check out any news and updates on the facebookPage at facebook.com/p3photographers.

Or, drop me an email at podcast “at” p3photographers.net.

Well, that’s it for today, for the story of Mrs M A Crow Swope, and her daughter, Minnie Crow Bader Oliver.

I really want to thank you for stopping by, and I hope you come back in May when I’ll have some more stories from Washington and beyond of early women artisan photographers.

Until then, I’m Lee, and this is Photographers, Pistols & Parasols.