Jessie Tarbox Beals’s first camera, 1888

Photo by Kevin Grady/Radcliffe Institute

Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942), one of the earliest women photojournalists, captured everything from a Rough Rider reunion to suffrage parades with the large-format camera seen in this self-portrait, ca. 1901–1903. The small box camera, which Beals acquired in 1888, is thought to be her first. The Library’s collections include a number of photographers who followed the trail blazed by Beals and others like her.
 
Jessie Tarbox Beals Papers, Schlesinger Library

Catalog record:

https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990014723930203941/catalog

Learn more:

See the Schlesinger Library's research guide on photographers.