Jessie Tarbox Beals

Jessie Tarbox Beals (December 23, 1870 – May 30, 1942) was an American photographer, the first published female photojournalist in the United States and the first female night photographer.

She is best known for her freelance news photographs, particularly of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, and portraits 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.

Beals was a "bright and precocious child" and did well in school. 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.

Photography career In 1893 Beals took a new teaching position in Greenfield, Massachusetts and visited the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. At the Exposition, Beals' interest in traveling and photography was sparked having met Frances Benjamin Johnston and Gertrude Käsebier. This position made her the first female photojournalist and was well-regarded by the papers and citizens of Buffalo and worked at the publications until 1904 when she left to take photos of the World's Fair.

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 the lurid murder trial of Edwin L. Burdick 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. Jessie Tarbox Beals in front of the Austrian Government Building at the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition, 1904, gelatin silver print, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC. 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 was greatly interested in the Indigenous peoples which resulted in capturing many spontaneous images that did not necessarily fit into the predominant narrative of racial and developmental progress. 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, producing over 3,500 photographs and 45,000 prints of the event.

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.

A studio on Sixth Avenue 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. 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. Following the establishment of her Greenwich Village studio, Beals participated in just one Canadian exhibition, at the Toronto Camera Club International Photo Exhibition, 1921.