In Drag – Pioneer Photographer Frances Benjamin Johnson
Circa 1890. “Frances Benjamin Johnston (right), full-length self-portrait dressed as a man with false mustache, posed with two similarly cross-dressing friends. The “lady” is illustrator Mills Thompson. Albumen print by Frances Benjamin Johnston.
About Frances Benjamin Johnson (1964-1952)
Frances “Fannie” Benjamin Johnston (1864 – 1952) was a pioneer American female photographer and photojournalist whose career lasted for almost half a century. She received training in photography and dark-room techniques from Thomas Smillie, director of photography at the Smithsonian and studied art in Paris. In 1894 she opened her own photographic studio in Washington, D.C., on V Street between 13th and 14th Streets, and at the time was the only woman photographer in the city.
Among her sitters was the lesbian poet Helen Hay Whitney, Nathalie Clifford Barney and many famous people. She became the official White House photographer for the Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, “TR” Roosevelt, and Taft presidential administrations. Having started out by taking society and political portraits, she later extensively photographed gardens and buildings. Perhaps inspired by Mattie Edwards Hewitt, a garden landscape photographer who was her lover for eight years and buisness partner from 1913-17.
Frances Benjamin Johnson by Gertrude Käsebier, 1905.
Related Link
American Garden Landscape Photographer Mattie Edwards Hewitt (1869 – 1956)