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'''Jessie Tarbox Beals''' (December 23, 1870 - May 30, 1942) was an [[American]] [[photographer]] and the first published female [[photojournalist]] in the United States. She is best known for her freelance news photographs, particularly of the 1904 [[St. Louis World’s Fair]], and photographs of places such as Bohemian [[Greenwich Village]]. Her trademarks were her self-described “ability to hustle” and her tenacity in overcoming gender barriers in her profession.<ref>Women Photojournalists: Jessie Tarbox Beals. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/bealsessay.html</ref>

==Early Life==

Beals was born Jessie Richmond Tarbox on December 23, 1870, in Hamilton, Ontario, the youngest child of John Nathaniel Tarbox and Marie Antoinette Bassett. John Tarbox was a sewing machine manufacturer, and his partnership with the largest sewing machine company in Canada made the Tarbox family wealthy. When Beals was seven, however, her father lost all of his savings in a bad investment and began drinking heavily. He eventually left home at the insistence of Beals’s mother, who then embroidered and sold some of the family’s belongings to keep the family income going.<ref>Alland, Alexander, Sr. (1978) Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer. New York: Camera/Graphic Press Ltd., 17 </ref>

Beals was a “bright and precocious child” and did well in school.<ref name="Alland">Alland, Alexander, Sr. (1978) Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer. New York: Camera/Graphic Press Ltd., 17</ref> At age fourteen she was admitted to the Collegiate Institute of Ontario, and at seventeen received her teaching certificate. Beals began teaching at a one-room schoolhouse in [[Williamsburg, Massachusetts]], where her brother Paul was also living at the time.

Around this time Beals won a subscription prize camera through the Youth’s Companion magazine.<ref>New York Times (May 31, 1942) “JESSIE BEALS DIES; Photographer, 71. 1942.” New York Times (1923-Current file), http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/106152921?accountid=11311 (accessed January 10, 2013)</ref> The camera was small and somewhat rudimentary, but Beals began to use it to take photographs of her students and their surroundings. Beals soon bought a higher quality Kodak camera and set up Williamsburg’s first photography studio in front of her house, although photography largely remained her side hobby.

==Career==

In 1893 Beals took a new teaching position in Greenfield, Massachusetts. After a visit to the [[World's Columbian Exposition]] in Chicago that year, Beals’ interest in traveling and photography was sparked. In 1897, Beals married Alfred Tennyson Beals, an Amherst graduate and factory machinist. In 1899, Beals received her first professional assignment when she was asked by the Boston Post to photograph the Massachusetts state prison.<ref name="Alland">Alland, Alexander, Sr. (1978) ''Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer''. New York: Camera/Graphic Press Ltd., 22</ref> Beals taught Alfred the basics of photography and the couple set out to work as itinerant photographers in 1900, with Alfred as Beals’s darkroom assistant. That year Beals also received her first credit line for her photographs in a publication, the ''Windham County Reformer''.<ref>Women Photojournalists: Jessie Tarbox Beals. http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/bealsessay.html</ref>

By 1901, the Beals' funds were depleted and they resettled in Buffalo, New York. Later that year, Beals was hired as a staff photographer by the ''Buffalo Inquirer'' and the ''Courier'', where she worked until 1904.
Photojournalism was physically demanding, often risky work, but Beals could be seen carrying out assignments in her ankle-length dresses and large hats, with her 8-by-10-inch glass plate camera and 50 pounds of equipment in tow. During one assignment for a huge murder trial in Buffalo, Beals broke a rule that forbade photographs of the trial by climbing a tall bookcase to a window to snap a picture of the courtroom before she was detected.<ref name="Alland">Alland, Alexander, Sr. (1978) Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer. New York: Camera/Graphic Press Ltd., 36</ref>

In 1904 Beals was sent to the opening of the [[Louisiana Purchase Exposition]] in St. Louis, Missouri. There, Beals persuaded officials to give her a late press permit for the pre-exposition, climbed ladders and jumped into a hot air balloon just to get photographs that interested her. She had a different style than most news photographers of the day, focusing on series of pictures that would later be used to write stories, rather than vice versa. Beals's display of her signature “hustle” earned her the position of official Fair photographer for the New York Herald, Leslie’s Weekly and the Tribune, as well as the Fair’s publicity department.<ref name="Alland">Alland, Alexander, Sr. (1978) Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer. New York: Camera/Graphic Press Ltd., 45</ref> In addition to photographing the various exhibits at the Fair, Beals also captured a candid photograph of President [[Theodore Roosevelt]]. This initial encounter earned her a special pass to photograph Roosevelt and the [[Rough Riders]] at their reunion in San Antonio, Texas in 1905.

In 1905 Beals opened her own studio on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Beals continued to take on a variety of photograph assignments, ranging from shots of auto races and portraits of society figures, to her well known photographs of Bohemian Greenwich Village and the New York slums.<ref>Hagen, Charles (Sep. 02, 1994) “Village bohemians from another era.” New York Times (1923-Current file), http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/109376161?accountid=11311 (accessed January 10, 2013)</ref> Over the years Beals also photographed several presidents and celebrities, including Presidents Coolidge, Hoover and Taft; Mark Twain; Edna St. Vincent Millay; and Emily Post.

While Beals' career flourished, her marriage became troubled. In 1911, Beals gave birth to a daughter, Nanette Tarbox Beals, most likely from another relationship.<ref name="Alland">Alland, Alexander, Sr. (1978) Jessie Tarbox Beals: First Woman News Photographer. New York: Camera/Graphic Press Ltd., 71</ref> Beals finally left her husband in 1917, moving to Greenwich Village and opening a new photography studio and gallery in 1920. For a few years Beals juggled working and caring for Nanette, who also suffered from rheumatoid arthritis and was frequently hospitalized. Beals eventually decided to send Nanette to camps and private boarding schools throughout the year. Nanette would later go on to live semi-permanently with one of Beals’ old friends.

==Later Years==

As the number of female photographers increased during the 1920s, Beals shifted her focus to giving public talks and specializing in photographing suburban gardens and estates of wealthy East Coasters. By 1928, she and Nanette moved to California, where Beals photographed Hollywood estates. The Great Depression brought Beals and Nanette back to New York in 1933, where Beals lived and worked in Greenwich Village. Beals gradually fell into poverty, years of lavish living and the effects of the Depression having taken their toll. She died on May 31, 1942 at Bellevue Hospital, at the age of seventy-one.

==Notes==
{{reflist}}


==References==
*Breitbart, Eric. ''A World on Display: Photographs from the St. Louis World's Fair''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1997

==External Links==
*[http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00048 Papers of Jessie Tarbox Beals, 1866-1989 (inclusive), 1880-1942 (bulk).] [http://radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library Schlesinger Library,] Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
*[http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch00047 Photographs, 1896-1941, n.d..] [http://radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library Schlesinger Library,] Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
*[http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/nyhs/beals/ Guide to the Jessie Tarbox Beals Photograph Collection 1900-1940]
*[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/23/arts/photography-review-a-pioneer-in-a-man-s-world-she-was-tough-enough.html PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW; A Pioneer in a Man's World, She Was Tough Enough]
*[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/newsplus/first-behind-the-camera-photojournalist-jessie-tarbox-beals/ First behind the camera: Photojournalist Jessie Tarbox Beals]

Schlesinger Library

2012-09-10T19:36:14Z

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[[Image:Schlesinger Library - Radcliffe Yard, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - IMG 6598.JPG|thumb|right|250px|<center>Schlesinger Library</center>]]
The '''Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America''' is a [[research library]] at the [[Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study]], [[Harvard University]]. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director, it is "the largest and most significant repository of documents covering women's lives and activities in the [[United States]]." The library is named after [[Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr.]], a noted history professor at Harvard during the 20th century; and his wife Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger, a noted [[feminism|feminist]]. The library was begun on August 26th, 1943, when the [[Radcliffe College]] alumna [[Maud Wood Park]] '98, a former suffragist, donated her collection of books, papers, and memorabilia on female reformers to Radcliffe. <ref>http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles/about.aspx</ref> This grew into a research library called the "Women's Archives", which was renamed in 1965 after Elizabeth Bancroft Schlesinger and her husband Arthur M. Schlesinger, as they were strong supporters of the library's mission. <ref>http://www.radcliffe.edu/schles/about.aspx</ref>

The Schlesinger Library exists to document women's lives and endeavors. Its wealth of resources reveals the wide range of women's activities at home in the United States and abroad from the early 19th century to the present day. The library’s holdings include manuscripts; books and periodicals; and photographic and audiovisual material.

;Manuscripts : There are more than 2,500 unique manuscript collections from individuals, families, and organizations. Women's rights movements past and present, feminism, health and sexuality, social reform, and the education of women and girls are core manuscript holdings. Ordinary lives of women and families and the struggles and triumphs of women of accomplishment are richly documented in diaries and other personal records. Many collections, such as the papers of [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]], [[Pauli Murray]], and the records of the [[National Organization for Women]], feature political, organizational, and economic questions.

;Books and periodicals : More than 80,000 printed volumes include scholarly [[monograph]]s as well as popular works. These cover topics including [[women’s rights]]; women and work; women’s health; women of color; comparative material about women in other cultures; works on women in the arts and in music; women and family; [[feminism|feminist]] and [[Antifeminism|anti-feminist theory]]; and [[lesbian literature|lesbian writings]]. Hundreds of periodical titles, including popular magazines such as ''[[Ladies' Home Journal]]'', ''[[Ebony (magazine)|Ebony]]'', ''[[Seventeen (magazine)|Seventeen]]'', highlight domestic concerns, leisure pursuits, etiquette, fashion, and food.

;Photographic and audiovisual material : More than 90,000 photographs, ranging from casual snapshots to the works of professional photographers, create an unparalleled visual record of private and public life. Audiotapes, videotapes and oral history tapes, and transcripts add the soundtrack to the story of women’s lives.

The library has two distinguished special collections. A culinary collection of over 15,000 books — spanning five centuries and global cuisines — is one of the world's most significant. This collection also includes the papers of several famous chefs and foodwriters such as [[M.F.K. Fisher]], [[Julia Child]], and [[Elizabeth David]]. The archives of [[Radcliffe College]], 1879–1999 — including papers of college officers, students, and alumnae — richly record the history of women in higher education.

While its focus for collecting is American women, the library has an abundance of print and manuscript materials bearing on issues around the globe as a result of American women's extensive travel and foreign residence. Some examples are letters of early [[missionaries in China]], activists' accounts of the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, and the world-spanning speeches and writings of [[Shirley Graham Du Bois]].

Detailed records for the library’s manuscript collections as well as books and periodicals can be found in [[HOLLIS]]. The catalog record gives a description of the item or collection and provides other important information such as offsite location or access restrictions.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External Links==
* [http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:RAD.SCHL:sch01139 Records of The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, 1942-2011: A Finding Aid.] [http://radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library Schlesinger Library,] Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

==See also==
*[[Women's history]]

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[[Category:University and college academic libraries in the United States]]
[[Category:Libraries in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Cambridge, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Radcliffe College and Institute]]
[[Category:Libraries in Middlesex County, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Harvard University Library]]