Tag: women photographers

Anna Tweed, Landscape Photographer in Colorado Springs

Anna M. Tweed was born in Kansas circa 1864 to William Wilson and Eliza A. Thompson Tweed.  The Tweed family lived in Wakarusa, about seven miles south of Lawrence, Kansas. They moved to Colorado Springs around 1878 where Anna’s father was the director of a mining company.

Tweed family
Glen Cove with Addie and Anna Tweed and Dad. Courtesy of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

In the mid-1890s, Anna pursued photography, with a studio at her brother’s property, Glen Cove, on Pike’s Peak Carriage Road in Colorado Springs. She specialized in local scenery printed on boudoir card mounts.  In 1900, she worked for photographer Fred P. Stevens.

That fall, Anna accepted a position with Foltz and Hardy’s new book, stationery, and art store in the Exchange National Bank block.  According to an article in the Colorado Springs Gazette, “her natural talents as an artist, and pleasing manners with customers, proved materially instrumental in the upbuilding of that popular firm.”  She was employed there for five years before taking a similar position at Kendrick’s bookstore in Denver.  In 1905, Anna’s landscape photographs were published in At the Foot of Pike’s Peak a collection of poems by Colorado Springs author Mrs. Lelah Palmer Morath.

Colorado midland
Anna M. Tweed, photographer. Group on top of Colorado Midland railroad car, albumen print on boudoir card mount. Collection of the author.

After a brief time in Denver, Anna returned to Colorado Springs.  In the years that followed, she traveled extensively, visiting Hot Springs, Arkansas; Las Vegas, New Mexico; Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California and Tacoma, Washington. 

In 1913, Ms. Tweed moved to New York City where she represented Wallace Nutting, a New England landscape photographer.  While on vacation in Colorado Springs during the summer of 1913, she brought 600 Nutting photographs with her and displayed them at Harding’s art store.  She lived in New York City for several years, but by 1923 she had moved to Los Angeles, where she resided until her death on December 21, 1945.  She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.  

For more information about  female photographers who worked in Colorado Springs see Searching for the Early Women Photographers of the Pikes Peak Region by Nancy Bathke and Brenda Hawley in Film & Photography on the Front Range, Pikes Peak Library District, 2012.

Thank you to Hillary Mannion, Archivist, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum for assistance with acquiring the scan of the Tweed family and to Beverly W. Brannan for proofreading this post.

Mary Dudley Revisited

In 2021 I wrote a post about Mary Dudley.    At that time, I had not seen any work from her studio in Grand Junction.  This cabinet card photograph of two unidentified men in western wear shows off her talent as a studio photographer.  Like most 19th century photographers, Dudley’s mount does not include her first name.   In Grand Junction she used “M. Dudley” and  her Boulder, Colorado mounts just “Dudley.”  While some may think she was trying to mask her identity as a women photographer, I think she was just following the conventions of the time.  Does anyone have additional work from Dudley’s Grand Junction studio that they would like to share or know more about her time in Grand Junction?

Mary Dudley, photographer.
Mary Dudley, photographer. Two unidentified men, circa 1893. Cabinet card photograph.  W. G. Eloe Collection

Una Wheeler, Camera Club Member to Professional

 

Portrait
Portrait of Una Wheeler Whinnerah, 1895, Ouray County Historical Society

Earlier this month I took a road trip to the Ouray County Historical Society’s Research Center to continue my study of  19th century Colorado photographers. Seeing examples of Una Wheeler’s photographs was the highlight of the trip.

Una Wheeler was born in Wisconsin on Valentine’s Day 1875 to Charles Augustus Wheeler and Abbie Eastman Wheeler.  She was the niece of  George M. Wheeler, superintending engineer of the Geographical Survey of the Territory of the U. S. West of the 100th Meridian.

In 1877, the family settled in Ouray, Colorado far from the amenities that the adult Wheeler’s enjoyed growing up on the East Coast.  Charles Wheeler, a surveyor and prominent citizen of Ouray, died unexpectedly from pneumonia on January 5, 1888 at the age of 38.  That left Abbie to take care of his wide-ranging business interests and their two children, Una (14) and Edward (11).  Charles’s nephew, Walter Wheeler, seven years younger than Abbie, stepped in to help with Charles’ businesses and ultimately married his aunt, Abbie.

Abbie and Walter performed in Ouray’s theater community.  They provided their children with a wide range of educational opportunities.  Una learned photography and classical dance.  Edward attended college in Denver.

Bachelor Trestle
Una Wheeler Whinnerah, photographer. Bachelor Trestle, circa 1900. Modern silver gelatin print from glass plate negative. Ouray Historical Society and The Huntington Library.

Around 1898, Una joined Ouray’s camera club.  While initially an amateur, Una eventually operated a photography studio out of the family’s home.  She photographed local landmarks, scenic views and mining interests with 5 x 7″ glass plate negatives.  Her friends  often posed whimsically  inside mines and with mining equipment.  

She displayed her photographs in the lobby of Ouray’s Beaumont Hotel and she sold her views at the San Juan Drug Company, alongside the work of other photographers.  Una offered both black and white and hand-colored photographs.  Later, when postcards gained favor, her work was printed in Germany–the place for  high quality and affordable postcards.

ore cart
Una Wheeler Whinnerah, photographer. Three woman and an ore car, circa 1900. Modern silver gelatin print from glass plate negative. Ouray Historical Society and The Huntington Library.

Wheeler married engineer, Richard Whinnerah, in 1902.  A few days before the wedding, seventy-five women attended  Ouray’s first bridal shower, gifting a total of 117 kitchen gadgets to Una.  The church, decorated with evergreen and apple blossoms, was filled to capacity for the wedding.  The couple traveled by train to California, enjoying a six-week honeymoon before returning to Ouray.  Their union would produce four children. 

After her marriage, Una continued to use her 5×7 camera and glass plate negatives, realizing that the quality of the glass plate negatives exceeded anything made with a simpler Kodak camera.  She mainly documented her children and their activities.  The Whinnerah’s lived in Ouray until 1930 when they moved to California for a few years.  They returned to Colorado when Richard was offered a job with the highway department.  In 1942 they retired to Rosemead, California.  Una Whinnerah died on June 22, 1957, in Los Angeles, CA.

In 1993, The Huntington Library in Pasadena, California acquired 347 5×7” glass plate negatives from the family of amateur historian, John B. Marshall, of Colorado.  The negatives were housed in a wooden box labelled: Rick Whinnerah, Rosemead, Calif.  The collection, attributed to Una Wheeler Whinnerah,  includes views of Ouray, as well as photographs of the Whinnerah children dating from 1898 to approximately 1912.  

Thank you to Gail Zanett Saunders, volunteer photo archivist, OCHS, for providing access to the work of several Ouray photographers during my visit. This research trip was possible due to the generosity of the The Peter E. Palmquist Memorial Fund for Historical Photographic Research.  

Wildlife Photography by the Wallihans

Allen Grant Wallihan and his wife, Mary Augusta Wallihan lived in sparsely populated northwestern Colorado where they were skilled with both the gun and the camera.  Mary picked up a camera first, but soon both Wallihans shared this passion.  Most publications credit Allen as the photographer and overlook Mary’s involvement, a common occurrence in photographic history, as women photographers were often considered assistants or helpers, rather than working behind the camera.

Mrs. Wallihan
Mrs. Wallihan.  Craig Press, January 31, 2009

Mary Augusta Higgins was born on February 22, 1837, at Oak Creek, Wisconsin to Elihu Higgins and Eliza (Rawson) Higgins. Mary’s father was one of the first settlers at South Milwaukee and Mary was purportedly the first “white child” born at Oak Creek. She married Cullen Farnham on June 1, 1865, at Croton Falls, New York.  The 1870 census lists Cullen and Mary living in Waukesha, WI, with Mary’s parents. In the 1870s, she and her husband were living in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Mary filed for divorce in 1877, claiming that Farnham had abandoned her without financial support. They divorced in 1880 and shortly thereafter she moved to her brother’s ranch in Routt County, CO.

Mule Deer
First Scent of Danger, Plate no. 22, Mule Deer, Buck and Doe.  From Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains.

Mary married Allen G. Wallihan, twenty-two years her junior, on April 16, 1885, at Rawlins, WY.  The couple lived in remote northwestern Colorado, twenty miles from their nearest neighbor.  Mrs. Wallihan learned to shoot a rifle, first to protect herself when her husband was away, but she also became a proficient hunter.  She developed a love for wildlife the led her to acquire a camera from a missionary that she used to photograph the local deer.  She learned the craft of photography from books and manufacturer’s catalogs. 

In 1888, she initiated a project, with her husband, to document Colorado’s widlife, becoming perhaps the earliest wildlife photographers. They used a crude large-format camera on a tripod, taking 4-1/4 x 6-1/2” glass plates.  As they learned more about photography, they upgraded their equipment, purchasing better cameras and lenses, using both 5 x 8” and 8 x 10” cameras.  They printed cyanotype proofs before selecting which negatives to make into finished prints that would be mounted on cards.

Mountain Goats
On Guard. Plate No. 7, Rocky Mountain Goat. From Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains.

The Wallihans produced two compilations of  wildlife photographs, Hoofs, Claws and Antlers of the Rocky Mountains (1894),  with an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt, was published by Frank S. Thayer in Denver.  Camera Shots at Big Game (1901) was published by Doubleday, Page & Co. and also included an introduction by Theodore Roosevelt.  The Wallihan’s photographs were exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition and in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

Mrs. Wallihan died on September 27, 1922, after suffering a stroke.  She was 85 years old.  She is buried near her home in Lay, Colorado.

Allen G. Wallihan was born at Footville, Wisconsin, on June 15, 1859 to Pierce and Lucy (Flower) Wallihan.  He had ten older siblings. Wallihan arrived in Leadville, Colorado, in 1879, and worked unsuccessfully as a miner.  He lived in Colorado Springs and Alpine, before moving to a horse ranch in Routt County in 1882.  He homesteaded on 160 acres in Lay, a small town twenty-two miles west of Craig, where he lived for the remainder of his life.  

Wallihan served as the postmaster of Lay for about fifty years.  He spent the latter part of his career as a U. S. Land Commissioner, surveying, platting, and overseeing the sale of the public lands in the county.  He also owned an interest in a large tract of bituminous coal.  After Mary Wallihan’s death in 1922, Allen married Essaye Cook on September 26, 1927.  Allen G. Wallihan died on December 14, 1935, after a stroke.  He is buried in Lay, CO in a casket he himself made.

Bibliography:   https://www.historycolorado.org/sites/default/files/media/document/2018/ColoradoMagazine_v21n5_September1944.pdf   

Thank you to Beverly Brannan, former curator of photography at the Library of Congress, for proofreading.

 

Mary Dudley and the Black Sisters, Boulder Photographers

Women in the 19th century had limited occupational opportunities.  Many unmarried women and widows struggled to earn a living and often relied on their extended family for financial support.  Some of the occupations open to women at the time included teaching, sewing, cooking, nursing, running boarding houses and photography.

brother & sister
Mary Dudley, photographer. Laura & Alfred Ellet, 1894-1895. Carnegie Library for Local History, Boulder.

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Illustration
Mary Dudley, photographer. Unidentified McKenzie girl, 1894-95. Carnegie Library for Local History/Museum of Boulder.

Mary P. Dudley was born in Wapello County, Iowa, on December 23, 1859, to Charles  S. Dudley and Polly Angeline Dennison Dudley.  As early settlers in the area, the Dudley’s owned property in the city of Agency, Iowa, as well as more than 800 acres outside the city limits.  (The History of Wapello County, Iowa: Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, … History of the Northwest, History of Iowa … Chicago: Western Historical Company, 1878, p. 611

According to the 1880 federal census, Mary taught school in Agency. In August of that year Mary’s father died, followed by her mother in 1888.   At least five of Mary’s nine siblings were also deceased by this time.

Mary’s whereabouts are unknown until 1893 when Colorado State Business Directory lists her as a photographer in Grand Junction, Colorado.  She relocated to Boulder in May 1894, purchasing C. W. Biles’ photography studio, over Rachofsky’s millinery store on Pearl St.  Miss Dudley specialized in studio portraiture.  Her advertisements in University of Colorado’s Silver and Gold (October 3, 1894, p. 12) offered  Minnettes ($1.00 per dozen) and Cabinettos ($1.50 per dozen), smaller card formats than the traditional cabinet card.   

horizontal image
Mary Dudley, photographer. E. W. Haskins and Royal Graham, 1895-96. Carnegie Library for Local History/Museum of Boulder.

In August 1895, Dudley hired Frank Oiler to assist her in the studio.  Oiler came highly recommended by Denver photographers F. A. Rinehart and Charles Nast.  In October, 1895, Miss Dudley sold her gallery to the Black Sisters and left for Ottumwa, Iowa, in an effort to regain her health.

Mary Dudley, photographer. Evan Austin, Elmo Maldon, Dan Fisher and Allen Volk, 1894-95. Carnegie Library for Local History/Museum of Boulder.

Sadly, Mary Dudley committed suicide in Agency, Iowa, on November 19, 1895, cutting herthroat with a butcher knife.  Miss Dudley was buried in Agency Cemetery, Agency, Iowa.

 

young boy in carriage
The Black Sisters, photographers. Richard H. Whiteley, 1892-1899. Carnegie Library for Local History, Boulder.

Anna E. Black (1867-1931) and her sister, Mary “Minnie” C. Black (1872-1899) were born in Illinois to Cochran S. Black and Helen Gertrude Wyman Black.  The family moved to Beatrice, Nebraska, in the late 1870s, where Cochran operated a flour mill.                               

Allen with microscope
Black Sisters, photographers. Dr. Henly Wheaton Allen seated at a table with a microscope.  December 24,  1897, Carnegie Library for Local History, Boulder.

Anna studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to Boulder in September 1895.  She planed to teach oil and china painting, but shortly after she arrived in town, Anna and her sister Minnie purchased Mary Dudley’s photography studio.  The Black Sisters excelled at portraiture.   They maintained their studio until 1898, then both sisters returned to Beatrice, Nebraska. Minnie died the following year.  I have not found any records about Anna’s life in Nebraska.

Woman and baby
Black Sisters, photographers. Unidentified woman and child. Carnegie Library for Local History, Boulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To see more photographs by Mary Dudley and the Black Sisters, you can search here. https://localhistory.boulderlibrary.org   I recommend using a broad search on “Dudley” and “Black Sisters.”

Special thanks to Barbara Buchman and Sarah Vlasity at Boulder’s Carnegie Library for Local History, Stephanie Fletcher, Ryerson & Burnham Libraries, The Art Institute of Chicago and Beverly Brannan, recently retired photography curator, Library of Congress.