Martha Tabor

Martha W. Tabor (1939–2004) was an educator, laborer, union organizer, photographer, and notable artist in the Washington, D.C., area.

Early life Tabor was born on March 11, 1939, in Knoxville, Tennessee, but was raised in Washington, D.C. Tabor, a Quaker, was an active member of the Friends Meeting of Washington, D.C.

Tabor earned a bachelor's degree from Colby College in 1961. She went on to earn a master's degree in comparative literature from the University of Maryland in 1967 and eventually earned a second master's degree in photography from Goddard College in 1980. She was married to Michael Tabor, though the two eventually divorced.

Early career Tabor held a number of jobs throughout her life and described her career path as "somewhat unusual." Between 1969 and 1973, Tabor worked at the Office of Economic Opportunity.

Tabor received a number of grants for her photography, including one from the National Endowment for the Arts, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in 1980, and the Swedish Government. Tabor was a member of Impact Visuals photographers' cooperative in New York City.

Sculpture Tabor began focusing on her sculpture around 1990. One of her most prominent works is a series of wooden sculptures based on traditional gospel music. Her sculptures are in the permanent collections of the Loudon Hospital Center, the Washington Theological Union, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Wesley Theological Seminary, Friends Meeting of Washington, the Urban Institute, and the Children's Inn at the National Institutes of Health. As with her photography, Tabor received a number of grants for her sculpture.

Death

Tabor died of cancer on January 10, 2004. She had battled cancer since 1996. Prior to her death, Tabor made a number of photographic donations to area repositories including the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., and the George Meany Memorial Archives at the National Labor College (now defunct and held by Special Collections at the University of Maryland).