Welcome to my April 2020 Great and Powerful Blogging from A to Z Challenge!

Jessie Tarbox Beals  (1870-1942) was a American photographer (although she was born in Canada), and is known as “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.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Tarbox_Beals)

Yes, this is where I fudge it – but there is an “X” there!   Being a photojournalist, and a woman, in the early 1900s had to have been very challenging.  “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.”  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessie_Tarbox_Beals)  Now, here are a couple of images from this trailblazer, in the public domain.

Jessie Tarbox Beals

Olympic Marathon participants, Len Tau (left) and Jan Mashiani of the Tswana tribe of South Africa

Resources:

Jessie Tarbox Beals at Wikipedia

Jessie Tarbox Beals at the Library of Congress

Jessie Tarbox Beals at Britannica

Jessie Tarbox Beals at the Howard Greenberg Gallery

Jessie Tarbox Beals at the New York Historical Society Museum and Library

Thanks for visiting my 2020 A to Z Challenge – Letter X.  You can find links to more blogs participating in this challenge at A to Z 2020 Challenge Master List (Google Docs).