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Female Firsts: Frances Benjamin Johnston · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I'll Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio, and it
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: is time for another edition of Female First, which means
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we are once again joined by the fabulous, the fantastic Eves.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Welcome Eves.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Hey y'all.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Hey. So, in our continued check in on all of
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: the things that you do, the travels that you go on,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: you do you have any standouts? How are you? How's
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: it been?
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Things have been pretty good. I feel like it was
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: one of those situations where yes, I was traveling, but
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: I was doing it very quickly, quickly and slowly at
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: the same time. So I was like moving from one
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: place to the other, and then when I would get
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: to a place, I would kind of be, you know,
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: just chill sometime. But I think one of my standouts
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: that I really enjoyed and also made time to return
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: to was West Virginia, which I don't know if we
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: talked about West Virginia last time we were on the
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: I was on the show.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: He did about the history.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and so I went back. Actually, so since
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: the last time we spoke, I went there first time,
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: but then I went back to check out some more
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: of the Black history that was there, and when I
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: went back, it was snowing, so I also got to
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: see there was like a stark contrast between the fall
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: that was there the first time I talked to you
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: all about it. So I guess that's kind of an
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: update for everyone since I mentioned it last time, and
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: then when I came back, it was just snowy all
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: the leaves have fallen. Completely different landscape looking at the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: mountains and the gorge from there. But I also got
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: a chance to visit some more of the Black historical
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: sites that were there in the New River Gorge area,
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: and I really enjoyed that. So before I had went
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: to an old missionary Baptist church, and I went to
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: a school, and before I went to the first Black
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: four ahe camp that was in West Virginia. So it
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: was the first Black forage camp in the entire United States.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: And now it's owned by the local Cultural Department, but
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: it was a new deal project essentially when it was created.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: And many other stops along the way that I went to,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: including a memorial site that was for a very large
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: industrial accident that happened that involved a lot of the
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Black mineworkers because most of the workers who were implicated
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: in that and that disaster were black, and so there
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: is a memorial up to them because at the time,
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: the mineworkers who were there in West Virginia, it was
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: because they were creating a tunnel through a mountain. They
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: were trying to divert some water and there was a
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: big accident there. So there was a memorial where some
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: of the graves had been replaced, dug up and turt
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: disinterred and placed into this new memorial to honor the
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: lives of the people who who were there. So it's
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: lots of a range of different things. Something celebratory, some
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: things about leisure, you know, like the four Ah camp was,
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: and learning and education and some things that were very
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: unfortunate that happened in the area. As history does it,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: it ranges the gamut. So that was definitely a standout
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: for me, but I went many other places as well
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: and it was pretty enjoyable.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and related to this episode and preserving history, I
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: wanted to ask you, are you a big acus You've
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: been on these journeys. I know you update Instagram sometimes
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: or social media sometimes. Do you take a lot of pics.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I do take a lot of pictures. Well, okay, so
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: before I didn't, so I've been pretty bad at taking pictures.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: But because my husband has been with me and he
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: does videography and photography, he's been taking a lot of pictures,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: and because we have a camera, I will often take
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: pictures and video of it too, and I have been
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: publishing some stuff on YouTube, and I have like a
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: very highly organized hard drive of the photos and videos
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: for every place that we have went to. Some of
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: those things, I was able to visit a lot of families,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: so some of those are family photos, but a lot
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: of it is of the landscapes and of us. I'm
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: trying to be a lot better at taking pictures of myself,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: even though I'm still not great at it. And we
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: also have like a good bit of drone footage, oh
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: from all of us locations. But oh, I saw the
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: most beautiful rainbow when I was in Maine. That excited me,
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: and I didn't see until I went back in looked
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: at the footage that it was a double rainbow. Yeah,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: I didn't even see this. I didn't see it with
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: my eyes there, but the camera picked it up so
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: much better. But it was one of those moments where
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: we were in the right place at the right time,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: and I really I don't know if I should be
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: this excited about a rainbow, but it was just absolutely
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: stunning because it was the Golden Hour and one end
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: of the rainbow was on the horizon of the ocean
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: and the other end was like over this ideal like
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: you know, shoreline of the town homes and the condos
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: on the shore, and so it was like it popped
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: up right after we got It was freezing cold, like
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: it was probably like thirty in the thirties, and everybody
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: left the beach, and when the rainbow appeared right at
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: the right moment, everybody came back. It was like, oh
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: my god, Oh my goodness, it's amazing. So yeah, that
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: was also a highlight for me that I'm really happy
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: that I have photos and videos of that's awesome. I
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: love that you were able to discover that.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: I love the double reaction, like the reaction to the
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: double rainbow like that.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm talking about that meme.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: It's legitimate, Like you get so excited.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: As you should be. That's awesome that you heard to
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: catch up too.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yes, that sounds amazing. Well, that is related
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: to the person we are talking about today, Eves, Can
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: you tell us who we're discussing.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, So today we're talking about Francis Benjamin Johnston. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: it is part of the reason I've brought her today
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: to talk about because I was looking for people who
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: were relevant to the travels that I had been on,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: and a lot of my focus in the travels that
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: I've been on recently has been black history, as it
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: often is, but I was also interested in and in
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: the history of women, and I was specifically thinking about
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: caves because I, for whatever reason, went to a couple
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: of caves in the last month. Realized that I had
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: spent a decent amount of time in them, and I
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: had learned more about the black history of people in
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: the caves, the people who were acting as guides, who
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: were working in like Saltpeter minds in the caves, who
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: were enslaved, and later on there were people who weren't
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: enslaved who were guides in caves. So I was learning
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: all about the black history, but I was like, you know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: what's the history of women in these caves? And Francis
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Benjamin Johnston is implicated in that history, although it's one
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: very small part, it's just what led me to wanting
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: to share her story today. And that history related to
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: caves is that she was the first woman to take
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: a series of photographs in Mammoth Cave, which is a
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: cave in National Park in Kentucky that I went to.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: And she also in some of her not technically con
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: considered completely first book pioneering achievements of hers is that
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: she was one of the first American photographers to have
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: a successful long term career in photography, one of the
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: first women press photographers in the US, and she's one
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: of the first American photographers to specialize in architectural documentation.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: And so yeah, I just her history is related to
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  Speaker 3: one Mammoth Cave in two, West Virginia, and that's I
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  Speaker 3: was like, oh, well, it's pretty it's relevant to things
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: that I'm thinking about right now. So it'd be really
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: nice to talk about her because she was born in
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: West Virginia, so I think that's a good place for
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: us to start her story. So she was born on
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: January fifteenth, eighteen sixty four, in Grafton, West Virginia, which
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: was a small town in the Appalachian Mountains and it
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: was a pretty important rail center during the Civil War,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: which was ongoing when Francis was born. Her parents were
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Francis Antoinette Benjamin and Anderson Donovan Johnson, and her maternal
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: grandmother lived in Rochester, New York, and that's where Francis
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: spent some time when she was younger. So by eighteen
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: seventy five she had moved with her family to Washington,
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  Speaker 3: d C. Which was a place that was a big
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: part of her development in her career. So her father
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: worked for the US Treachery Department and her mother worked
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: as a journalist and wrote for newspapers in DC and Baltimore,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: and clearly that had a big impact on the career
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: trajectory that she chose for herself. So in eighteen eighty
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: three she ended up graduating from the Notre Dame of
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Maryland Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies. That's a mouthful, but
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: it was a school for girls in Maryland, and then
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: from eighteen eighty three to eighteen eighty five she studied
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: drawing and painting at the Academy. Julian and her teacher's
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  Speaker 3: their favorite traditional subject matter, and so did she even
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: though Impressionism was pretty big at the time, but she
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: was like, this what I'm rocking with. I'm doing traditional.
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  Speaker 3: My teacher's are too. This is what I'm interested in.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: And when she got back to Washington, she went heavy
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: into the art scene. She joined the Art Students League,
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: which was a membership org for artists. But it was
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: around this time that she realized, like, I am going
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: down this drawing and painting route, but I'm not really
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: called to do that. She was feeling like journalism and
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: photography were more the lanes that she wanted to be in.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: So at first in the mid eighteen eighties, she was
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: writing articles and illustrating them with pen and ink drawings.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: But then this is clearly a very foundational moment for her,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: when she got a camera. It was when family friend
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: George Eastman sent her an early role film Eastman Kodak camera,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: and she started using photography to accompany her articles. And
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: she also started studying photography with Thomas Smelly at the
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Smithsonian Institution, and that was the beginning of a lifelong
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: friendship that the two of them had. So her first
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: major photo illustrated article, that was what she was doing
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: at the time. These photo illustrated articles, even though to
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: her viewpoint was kind of her photos are the things
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: that are telling the story, and her viewpoint was that
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: the photos were creating the narrative and those were the
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: most prominent elements that she was concerned about in the
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: storytelling that she was doing. So her first major photo
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: illustrated article was in two parts in Demorris Family Magazine
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: in eighteen eighty nine, and that was about money production
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: in the United States, and that article led her to
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: more publications in that magazine, and that included what I
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: mentioned earlier, which was that piece on Mammoth Cave. It
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: was Mammoth Cave by Flashlight. It was kind of a hit,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: and she and her mother got there to Mammoth Cave
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: in October of eighteen ninety one, and for a few weeks,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: she and her mother and a cave god named Bill
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Garvin went into the cave, and of course the darkness
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: was an artistic challenge for her and for the photographic
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: medium itself, and she was able to use techniques to
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: be able to take really lovely photos in the cave,
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: and so she ended up starting to exhibit her photograph.
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  Speaker 3: She did so on her first show in eighteen ninety
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: one in DC, and I mean she has she pretty
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: much took off like it's a huge list of accomplishments
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: from here, lots of jobs that she took around the country.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: So in eighteen ninety two to eighteen ninety three, for instance,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: she was one of the official photographers for the World's
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Columbian Exposition. And she also clearly was very good at
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: making connections and using those connections to get her more
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: freelancing contract work. And she formed a relationship with George
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Grantham Bain, who was the founder of the Bay News service,
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: which provided photos and articles to newspapers around the country,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: and this relationship that she had with him, it helped
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: her get many commissions, and he essentially acted as her
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: agent for several years. So all of this work she
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: was putting in, she's learning more about photography, learning more
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: technical skills, and also learning more of the trade. By
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: eighteen ninety five, she had opened her own commercial studio,
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: which was behind her parents' house in Washington, DC, And
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: at this point she was specializing in portraits. And as
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: we see in a lot of these first not without context.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: A lot of times it's because you already have access
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: to certain resources and you're of a social status. That
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: was the case for her. She was in Washington, DC,
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: so she was already able to bump elbows and rubb
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: shoulders with lots of dignitaries and officials and VIPs basically,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: and she also had the gumption to you know, start
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: her own business and use her skills in photography to
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: help that business. She took portraits of influential people like
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: President Eddie Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington, and Susan B. Anthony,
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: lots of other you know, VIP names on the list.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: And she was also which I think is really cool,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: she was into uplifting other people's ability to do this.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: So this is I really loved reading this article that
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: she wrote in eighteen ninety seven that was called what
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: a Woman Can Do with the Camera for Ladies Home
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Journal and just also funny to me in the from
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: a historical perspective like biographical that this title that this
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Lady's Home Journal article was given has clearly it also
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: really well defies her own legacy. So a lot of
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: people use that title, you know, in pieces about her
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: about her because it's like, look, look what francis Benjamin
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Johnston could do with the camera. Because she wrote this
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety seven, I mean, and she lived for
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: many decades after that, so she did a lot with
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: the camera after that. That was pioneering work and very
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: important work. And if you read the article, it's very
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: to the point, like it's it's pretty extensive about it's
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: not very surface level. It's not just like every woman
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: can do this, and you know, you should do this
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: if you can. It's not one of those things that
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: it made it seem like what she was doing was
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: out of reach. She seemed like she was really trying
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: to make it accessible to people, which I think is
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: pretty cool for a time when photography was a medium
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: that was really just taking off in the first place,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: and obviously required a lot of equipment, larger equipment than
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: it is now, and oftentimes it was where running a
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: business of photography was viable. It was far fewer places
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: at the time. But she wrote this article where she
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: talked about how much it costs. For instance, she said
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: it cost a thousand to two thousand dollars to equip
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: a photo studio if you want to do a photo studio.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: She talked specifically about working in portraiture and how that
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: could make you money. She talked about how in this
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: article about how photography it would be better over things
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: like bookkeeping and other jobs that women were doing at
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: the time. So, for instance, she says in the article,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: the woman who makes photography profitable must have as to
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: personal qualities, good common sense, a limited patience to carry
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: her through endless failures, equally unlimited tact, good taste, a
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: quick eye, a talent for detail, and a genius for
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: hard work. In addition, she needs training, experience, some capital,
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: and a field to exploit. This may seem at first
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: glance an appalling list, but it's incomplete rather than exaggerated.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And so she goes on after that. But I'll end
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: the quote there, which it's funny to me because I
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: was thinking the same thing. I was like, appalling. I'm
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: not sure, but it seems like a very high standard
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to live up to, cause you told me I have
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: to have good taste, and I don't even know how
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: I'm supposed to judge good taste, because good tastes is subjective.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: If you know, you know, if you know, Anne, I
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: have to learn this new medium, you know, And later
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: on in the article she points out how it's really
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: good to be an apprentice to somebody, to be able
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: to shadow somebody and learn from somebody to directly, because
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: there are schools, but the schools are few, and it
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: was kind of a she was kind of throwing a
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: little bit of shade in the article because she said that, yeah,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: those good schools, they are few, they're not that many
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: of them, and they're really, you know, just kind of
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: about getting an amateur photographer a little bit of money.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: They're not really about, you know, teaching the craft and
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: teaching the actual art of business and creating a business
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: in photography, which I think is a student and very
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: real of her to say, because she was very business focused.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: And I think that's clear too in a lot of
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: the articles about her when you read about her, because
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: it's this accomplishment after this accomplishment, after this one. Reading
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: like this long scroll of her accomplishments, and her like
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: personal character is it falls. It takes a back seat
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: to all of the things that she did. All of
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: her her being took a back seat to all of
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: her doing in and some of these snippets are very
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: these highlights of her life. But if anybody, the article
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: is online for everybody to read, and I can give
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: y'all the link to it as well. But it's pretty
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: fascinating to read someone who was so young in her
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: business and craft still but was like, y'all can go
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: ahead and get started, and I'm going to tell you
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: how to do it, which I think is very helpful.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: So in her own profession she was developing to herself
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: and in the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundred she
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: took a lot of freelance jobs around the country. Social
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: status and connections helped. Once again, she was earning money
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: from portrait commissions of government officials and their families, but
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: she was doing other work in the field as well.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: So in eighteen ninety nine and nineteen hundreds she took
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: photographs at the Hampston Institute in Virginia, which is an
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: HBCU and it's now called Hampston University. And in nineteen
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: oh one she took the last photograph of President McKinley.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: It was shortly before his assassination at the Buffalo Exposition.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: And she also continued with her work documenting black education.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: She went to Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in nineteen oh
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: two and took photographs there, and a few years later
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: while she was in Europe, she visited the Loomi Years,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: who people listening might know is associated with their work
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: in inventing and filmmaking and early photographic equipment, and Francis
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: was developing her skills in photography. She learned the new
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: color photography process that was called autochrome. So she'd getting
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: a lot of work, but seemingly is not completely fulfilling
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: to her because she was doing a lot of portraiture,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: which was good for her at the time successful, but
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: it was getting too stressful and commercial for her, so
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: she decided to move to New York City where she
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: felt that she could have more control over her art
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: and too. At the time, New York City was becoming
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: a center of photography where there were other people. You could,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: you know, throw a stone down the road where she
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: was at in New York City and it would hit
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: another photographics studio, so it's not like it was like
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: everybody was doing it. But she was in good company there,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: even though she had some haters based on other people
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: saying that her work was kind of commercial, you know,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: all those things, but she had she started to build
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: her business there. So she and a friend who was
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: also apparently a love interest for her, Maddie Edwards Hewitt,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: they opened a photo studio on Fifth Avenue and she
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: switched focused from portraiture and they worked on architectural and
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: garden photography projects. They were photographing rich folks, country estates,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: and through this work she learned a lot about horticulture
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: and gardens. So her work took a turn, and she
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: was not afraid to pivot. Clearly, she was still using
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: her same skills, but she was. Her fondness was growing
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: for horticulture and gardens, and she was reading books about it,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: going to bookstores and learning more about it and giving
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: lectures about it. And so people were starting to associate
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: her with this architectural and estate work that she was doing.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: And I mean, hey, the clientele had the money, clearly,
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: because these are people with huge homes and they want
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: them to be photographed. So good field for her to
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: be in at the time. It was a good market
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: for her to capitalize on. Do y'all like architectural photography.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Do y'all ever look at any books that have those
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: kind of photographs in them.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's fascinating, especially when you look at the
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: history and the depth of a design and what they
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: went through and how they kind of aged and what
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: technology has done in those designs.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: M yeah, And.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I love like I love looking at you know, something
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: that you might just pass by, but when you take
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: time to really appreciate it, Oh, what this is? I
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: didn't notice this, and I didn't notice this. And I'm
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: also a huge nerd in that they during the Olympics.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: If people remember, there was an Assassin's Creed like character
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and part of the reason is because the video the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: video game company had scanned the cathedral to us in
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: the game, and when it burned down, they used the
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: video game scans to rebuild it.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Wow. I didn't know that. Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: But so like when you look at pictures like architectural pictures,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: if something happens to that building or they want to
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: recreate it, they are really important in that way. So
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I find that that interesting.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, So that is a great segue into this next
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: part of her story, because it wasn't just like, oh,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: I'm these are beautiful homes and I'm really admiring of
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: the people who had built these big businesses, and they
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: were business people in the United States and had a
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: states in Europe, and that she could photograph. It was
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: just like she was necessarily putting these people on the pedestal,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: and she was that into the wealth and the ostentatious
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: display of wealth while she was into it. So her
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: work she started this architectural photography, and then in nineteen
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: twenty six she spent time in the Southeast United States
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: and became interested in colonial architecture in the South, so
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: very different from these big estates that she was photographing
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: in Europe and elsewhere. And she did this photographic survey
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: of the historic architecture in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and this kickstarted
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: a world of other historic architectural surveys and photography in
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: the Southeast. So when the stock market crashed in nineteen
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: twenty nine, it wasn't so cool to like photographs and
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: show off these huge estates, and she started doing this
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: really comprehensive, very comprehensive photographic survey of historic buildings in Virginia.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: She would do research in the area, she would look
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: at these deeds and platts, she would talk to local
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: historians in the area. She would, you know, do all
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: this coming through of documents and people who were actually
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: on the ground and knew things about the local spaces
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: and architecture in Virginia. But then she went on to
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: do more surveys in Florida and North Carolina, and she
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: got assistance from Carnegie. So this work that she did
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: ended up being the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: the South. And while she was going to all these places,
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: she had a in the nineteen thirties and forties, a
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: driver and assistant who was a black man named Huntley Ruff,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: which is a great name, first of all, but he
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: drove her around to sites, and you know, he was
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: you know, therefore he's in some of the pictures. If
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: you go, anybody right now can go and look on
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: the Library of Congress's site and see a lot of
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: the pictures that she took, youd see Huntley Ruff in
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: some of her pictures. And later he was called out
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: to duty during World War Two, but he continue to
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: be in contact with her and have a relationship with
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: her throughout the rest of her life. And she also
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: exhibited her survey photographs so she would kind of do
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: this survey of a place and then she would exhibit
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: her photographs, and she exhibited her photographs in New Orleans
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty eight, and she was really charmed by
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: the city for obvious reasons. So by this point she
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: had got into architecture. And of course the architecture in
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: New Orleans is very distinct and there's a lot of
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: intense and very intricate history that goes into it. But
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: speaking of what you were talking about, any how, something
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: like photographing or capturing the essence and the image of
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: historic architecture can help preserve that place. That's very relevant
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: to the work that Francis Benjamin Johnston was doing because
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: it kind of helped garner general support for historic preservation.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: But it said that some of the photographs she took
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: help really underscore how important it was to preserve these
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: historic buildings in places like New Orleans. So it's kind
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: of estimated that the work that she did, the photographs
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: she took in the surveys that she did help support
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: the actual legislative work that was happening to put zoning
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: ordinances and things like that in place and municipalities to
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: help protect these buildings. So her work definitely had an
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: impact in that regard, and she was clearly very dedicated
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: to it. These surveys that she did took place over
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: several years, and she did them in different places and
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: was very motivated by the work that she was doing
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: and the change that I was creating. But she wasn't
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: that political though, so of course things like zoning ordinances
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: and preserving historic architecture. She was doing work in for
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: Confederate architecture, colonial architecture, you know, so the work that
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: she was doing was very related to politics, but she
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: didn't really she didn't like put out any statements talking
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: about her politics and how they affected the work that
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: she was doing and how she thought about it, like
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: it was kind of a in her situation, seemed like
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: it was this work speaks for itself, and I'm doing
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: this work of helping historic preservation. But she was also
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: very concerned with the technical aspects of course of the
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: work that she was doing. So she said this in
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: a nineteen thirty eight article. She said, I won't make
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: a picture unless the moon is right, to say nothing
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: of the sun light in shadow. Most of the time,
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: I have to be excruciatingly patient, waiting for the light
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: to get precisely right. Sometimes I have a tree cut down,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: a stunt removed, or a platform erected to get the
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: proper perspective. I've shot pictures from on top of box
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: cars and loaded trucks. If I'm in a city street,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I often call the police to hold up our detoured
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: traffic while I photograph a place. When I photograph an interior,
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: I usually shoe the family out, locked the door, and
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: buckled down to business. So that is just a glimpse
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: of her character. When she was on a set in
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: a location about to set up for the shots that
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: she was taking, she was very serious about the craft
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: as well, so she In nineteen forty five, she bought
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: a house on Bourbon Street in New Orleans and she
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: renovated it, and that year she also came an honorary
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: member of the American Institute of Architects. Even though she
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: herself wasn't an architect. They wanted to highlight her. They
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: wanted to recognize her for the work that she did
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: in recording architecture in the US. And she died on
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: May sixteenth, nineteen fifty two, at age eighty eight, and
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: in her will, she gave her car to Huntley Roff
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: and she was buried in Rock Creek Park Cemetery in DC.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: And like I mentioned earlier, you can see a lot
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: of her work in the Library of Congress's collections. They're
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: at the Francis Benjamin Johnson papers are housed there, but
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: you can also go online and look through look through
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: the collection and see some of the photos and her
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: correspondents and get to see all of the work that
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: she did in portraiture and architecture because her her works
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: are also in collection of Architecture in the Brew of Congress,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: so you can see see some of her work in
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: both of those places.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I recommend looking it up. She really did.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: She went all over and tried all kinds of things,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: and she really was business driven and motivated, but also
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: very serious about the craft.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: And I love learning about.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: I like the like technical aspects of how photography and
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: film have changed, and I like thinking about how that
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: impacts historical preservation and who's who's taking the photo, because
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: we still talk about that today with who's who's behind
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: the camera on this film, or who's who's doing who's
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: choosing where the lens goes? So it's a really really
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: interesting story and uh, honestly, there's a lot written about
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: our listeners. You should go should go look it up. Yeah,
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: very very interesting.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's one of those situations where it's
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: like we we get to see so much of her work.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: It was so well documented, like she was doing the
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: documenting at the time, and it's so well documented in
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: archives now and I think because of all the work
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: that historians and scholars have done and trying to, you know,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: talk about her legacy, that it's made it pretty accessible
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: to learn a lot more about her.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well, thank you so much as always, Eves
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: for bringing this history to us. You really appreciate it.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: You're welcome.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Where can the good listeners mind you?
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: You can find me online at Evesjeffcoat dot com. That's
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: probably the first place you want to go. So that's
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: spelt why V E S J E F F co
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: A T dot com and that'll take you to all
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: the other places. So you can go to my contact
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: page and simmy an email from there. You can also
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: sign up for my newsletter there, and you can also
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: go to my Instagram. I'm at not apologizing on Instagram.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: I'm also on many many other episodes of Stuff Mom
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Never Told You for this female first series in which
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: we talk about women in history who had pioneering achievements
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: and yeah, that's that's where you find me. Yes, and
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: go do that.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: If you haven't already listeners, we'll be checking back in
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: uh with all the stuff that you're doing. Use in
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: the meantime listeners. If you'd like to contact us, you can.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at moll Stuff Podcasts,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: or on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff I've Never Told You.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: We're also on YouTube. We have a tea public store,
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: and we have a book you can get where you
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: our executive producer Maya and Arcturder Joey, thank you, and
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told You
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
• 34:55
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• 34:57
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