Frances Benjamin Johnston

The Photojournalist: Frances Benjamin Johnston

Disclaimer: I do not own these photographs. Johnston's photographs were found online using Google. These photographs are only being shown for critique and analysis.

By Melissa Wong
My Online Journalism Blog

The Rebel
Johnston’s iconic self-portrait:

According to The Photographic Legacy of Frances Benjamin Johnston, France Benjamin Johnston photographed herself in her studio one day while “wearing stockings hold[ing] a cigarette in one hand, a beer mug in the other. She sits with her dark skirt hooked up so her white petticoats and the calves of her legs are visible. With her legs crossed in unladylike fashion, Johnston is seen in profile, determined and thoughtful, looking into space” (8).

“The men portrayed along the mantelpiece are meant to be a joke that could be shared with the public- that she rejected a husband for a more independent artistic life. To those who knew her intimately, the irony was she was a lesbian who was very discreet about her personal life” (9).

Johnston The Photojournalist

Johnston wrote articles for newspapers, magazines, and journals that she sold along with photographs:

“Johnston’s first important article, however, was for Demorest’s Family Magazine, published in 1889. A two-part piece, print in December 1889 and January 1890, this article, entitled ‘Uncle Sam’s Money,’ was a short study of the production of currency. In addition to a text describing the manufacturing process, the article included photographs and a series of engravings, themselves copied from photographs” (Ausherman, 26).

“Two Johnston’s most important and longer articles were a study of the White House and another of Annapolis midshipmen. The first was published in Demorest’s Family Magazine in 1890, with a second version appearing three years later in Harper’s Weekly. The second article appeared in Illustrated American in 1894” (Ausherman, 27).

Archie Roosevelt

“Thanks to Johnston we can see the Roosevelt children playing with their pet pony at the White House” (Berch, 1)

Johnston was able to make a lot of connections at the White House and her appeal to “magazine editors was based on her reputation for having access to high government officials, particularly in the White House” (Berch, 21)

The Critic

In 1899, Johnston served as a juror at the Philadelphia Salon annual exhibition, but her work was still displayed in the “Salon as well. Among her more important contributions that year was ‘The Critic’…

This interpretive portrait of Miss Julia Marlowe, an actress whom Johnston knew, was described by one reviewer as one of Johnston’s best photographs from a purely artistic standpoint. Ironically, the actor is portrayed as a critic, dressed in classically inspired grab, viewing a painting by Botticelli, which rest on an easel. Through the image of the sitter posing as an art object simultaneously contemplating art, Johnston illustrates how art transforms the viewer” (Ausherman, 63).

 USS Olympia Crew

George Grantham Bain, the inventor of the ‘press agency’ tipped Johnston off that Admiral George Dewey was fresh from his victory in Manila Bay and he would be anchoring in Italy when he returned to the US. Johnston had convinced Theodore Roosevelt to model his Rough Riders uniform for her camera, so she was able to convince him to vouch for her, so the Admiral would let her board the battleship with her fake enlistment record to take photographs of the brave crew. (Berch, 37).

 The Crew Waltz

“Bain had told her to take plenty of photos of Dewey himself, which she did- on deck chatting with her, sitting with his dog, posed at his desk [and] in his private quarters. Johnston did not stop with Dewey, though; she went on to take a look at daily life aboard the ship. 

Once again, her ease with common working people animated her shots. There were sailors slouched in their bunks, sewing each other’s clothes, waltzing with each other on the top deck, and tattooing each other’s bodies” (Berch, 38).

Western High School, Washington, DC 1899. Physical Education Class

Johnston made two major documentary projects using more than five hundred photographs. One was of public schools and the other was of the Hampton Institute. The Hampton photos were shown in the “Negro Exhibit” (its official name) in the American Society Economy division at the Palais de Congres. Johnston’s Washington photos were most likely shown on the first floor of the Muee Centennal. (Berch, 43)

Contrast

“Students viewing Greenough’s statue of George Washington, 1899. The irony of segregated but “progressive” schools is suggested by this crowd of African-American children gazing up at the white marble” (Berch, 45). The photos would become controversial because these Institutes were assimilating its students into a white society (https://www.moma.org/artists/7851).

“A lesson about Native American, Hampton, 1899. Widely reproduced, this tableau has received copious commentary, especially on the parallels between the nearly extinct eagle and the soon-to-be denatured Native Americans” (Berch, 52)

“That complexity of the people can be credited in part to Johnston’s artistry: It was her choice to frame highly conflicted images. Bald eagles were juxtaposed against Native Americans dressed in starched uniforms deliberated by South American politics” (Berch, 52)

Hampton School

Students repairing stair case, 1899. The students labor like angels on a Jacob’s ladder to heaven, a apt visual metaphor for Hampton’s mission” (Berch, 49)

The End (Johnston also did drag)

Works Cited

Ausherman, M. (2009). The Photographic Legacy of Frances Benjamin Johnston. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Berch, B. (2000). The woman behind the lens: The life and work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864-1952. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.

Kobre, Kenneth (2013). Photojournalism the Professionals’ Approach. 6 ed. United Kingdom: Focus Press.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/victorian-womanhood-in-all-its-guises-14265506/ 

https://www.moma.org/artists/7851

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©Melissa Wong