Who is the female night photographer who also happened to be the first published woman photojournalist in the United States? Let’s find out more about this fearless, intrepid force of nature.
Jessie Tarbox Beals
The early 1900s were a time in which most women’s roles were confined to the home. If women were photographers at all, this was confined to indoor portrait studios.
This, however, didn’t stop Jessie Tarbox Beals.
No fear
Beals set herself apart by working outdoors and in situations thought to be “too rough” for a woman. She took some of her photojournalism photos from ladders, hot air balloons, and platforms, hauling fifty pounds of 8 x 10″ equipment and glass plate negatives with her.
Beals seemed indomitable. She photographed in all conditions, including fires, floods, and winds so strong she had to sit on her 50-pound camera to keep it from flying away. She straddled speeding cabs, scaled telephone poles, and climbed dusty bookshelves to get her photos.
During this period, Beals photographed suffrage marches, women’s jobs, female-run shops and restaurants, poor living conditions of immigrant families, and women’s rights. A go-getter, she also photographed Calvin Coolidge, Teddy Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Mark Twain, Ida M. Tarbell, General Pershing, and Fannie Hurst.
Full-time news photography
In 1902, Jessie became a full-time professional news photographer. The editor of Buffalo, New York’s two local papers, the Buffalo Inquirer and The Courier hired her, allowing her to freelance as well. She was proud of her ability to get into difficult-to-photograph places, some of which were proclaimed off-limits to news photographers. And she did this all while hauling her heavy camera equipment with her, taking pride in her physical conditioning and ability to promote herself.
Tenacity and fearlessness at the World’s Fair
She was probably best known for covering the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, where she was the first woman to be given credentials. Due to her ability to hustle and promote herself as well as her sheer tenacity, she ultimately became the official photographer at the Fair for the New York Herald, Tribute, and Leslie’s Weekly, three Buffalo newspapers, and all the local St. Louis newspapers as well as the Fair’s own publicity department. Here too, she climbed ladders and flew in hot air balloons to get her photos. She also photographed dignitaries at the event, photographing William Howard Taft and President Roosevelt through pure tenacity. She eventually accompanied Roosevelt as a member of his Presidential party and accompanied him to a reunion of the Rough Riders in 1905.
If one is the possessor of health and strength, a good news instinct … and the ability to hustle, which is the most necessary qualification, one can be a news photographer.
Jessie Tarbox Beals
About those hot air balloons
Even after using hot air balloons, she was still denied riding one. At the 1907 International Balloon Race in St. Louis, she was told that she couldn’t ride one because it was too dangerous for a woman. However, as one began lifting off, “the huge crowd was thunderstruck to see [Beals], a camera slung over her shoulder, grip the top of a basket and pull herself aboard,” according to the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Explosive night photography
Of course, we had to get to her night photography. It’s in the title, after all.
She teamed up with freelance writer Harriet Rice, teaching herself to use flash powder to make photos at night. Naturally, she was one of the first female photographers to use this as well!
If you are thinking that using explosive magnesium chlorate flash powder to illuminate her photographs could get a night photographer in trouble, you’d be right on the mark. But Beals was not shy about using flash powder. She attempted to photograph a special group exiting a theatre from a stoop across the street, allegedly using two pounds of flashlight powder, about four times the usual amount. The New York American reported:
The explosion of an over-charge of flashlight powder set off by two photographers, one of them a woman, just as crowds were poring out of the Garrick Theatre, caused tremendous excitement and considerable damage. Windows in several houses were broken, scores of families, brought out of bed by the detonation, which rang through three blocks, came scurrying into the street, some of them in their bedclothes.
The New York American
The explosion was sufficiently terrifying that Palmer Hunt, head of the Iron Workers Association, thought this was an attempt on his life as his windows shattered.
In comparison, modern-day night photographers using an LED flashlight seems rather mild.
What Beals used for night photography
If Beals was willing to haul her cumbersome 8 x 10″ view camera up ladders, stoops, platforms, and hot air balloons, you can be sure that she used the same equipment at night. Already challenging during the day, such equipment would have been doubly so at night. Her basic kit included a large view camera, lenses, a heavy wooden tripod, holders, and heavy glass plates.
In light of this, it’s humorous to think about how we night photographers so often clamor for a mirrorless camera or a carbon fiber tripod instead of a chunkier DSLR or aluminum tripod.
Archives of Jessica Tarbox Beals
The archive of her work at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University contains over 100 prints of her night images. These include photographs of New York and the World’s Fair, Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, and later, the Mission-style architecture in Santa Barbara after she moved to California in 1922.
Motivation for night photography
Gifted night photographer and historian Lance Keimig at National Parks at Night notes that little is known about why Beals created night photos or how she may have been inspired to begin it in the first place. She may have been aware of night photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who was creating nocturnal images in the same area as she was at the time.
Regardless, Beals deserves attention for her pioneering role in photojournalism and night photography as well as the excellent quality of her images. And she certainly deserves enormous credit for accomplishing this while upending gender-based obstacles through her tenacity and courage.
Book about Jessica Tarbox Beals
After Beal’s passing, photographer Alexander Alland, Sr. purchased many of her prints and negatives. He published a biography about her, Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer, in 1978.
“Her career was remarkable by any standard. But for a woman at the turn of the century, it was practically unheard of.”
Alexander Alland, Sr.
Fabulous! I enjoyed reading about her. I also think your photography is sensational!
Thank you very much. Greatly appreciated, Vicki!