100 years ago today the following announcement appeared in the Birmingham News:
Birmingham News, August 17, 1924
Yes, 100 years ago today, Birmingham News readers would have been excited to learn that Montevallo’s own photographer, Alice Yeager, was elected vice-president of the Alabama chapter of the Photographers’ National Association of America. Well done, Mrs. Yeager!
Alice Yeager was no slouch when it came to running a photography studio. By 1924 she’d a been a professional photographer for 17 years. Back in 1907, following the advice of a family friend, Alice had gone to the McMinnville, Tennessee school of photography to learn how to be a photographer. After finishing her studies in McMinnville, Alice returned to Montevallo and taught her husband, James, how to be her assistant in a photography studio. Alice and James then opened the Yeager studio in Montevallo.
After James passed away at the age of only 43 in 1919, Alice Yeager continued running the Yeager studio on her own, not retiring until circa 1940. Mrs. Yeager not only had a thriving studio business in Montevallo for over 25 years, along the way she won numerous accolades from both her customers and her peers. It’s worth noting that in addition to her studio business, she was also hired at times in a variety of photographic capacities by various local schools and colleges in Alabama.
Over the years, Alice Yeager periodically won national awards for her photography, too.
Interestingly, there are multiple notices in the newspaper that indicate that she regularly employed other women photographers as her assistants after James died. These women photographers are mentioned in the newspaper as running the Yeager studio whenever Mrs. Yeager was off at a conference or taking photos at an event (e.g. at a college) in another town.
A 1932 newspaper article about Alice Yeager and her studio provides some background information about her life and career; the article also includes some photos that show how her studio location changed over time. For example, in 1928 she remodeled her studio/residence, which resulted in a new “two-story English style frame building of ivory color with green trim”, with a reception room on the first floor and “a modern studio upstairs with its conventional backgrounds and ample sky lights.”
Below I’ve included the photos of the Yeager studio building exterior from the 1932 article:
Shelby Country Reporter, January 28, 1932
Photos of Alice Yeager’s studio in Montevallo, Alabama:
Top left: original one-room shack that Alice and her husband, James, when they first opened their studio circa 1908-1910.
Top right: The studio/residence built before James died in 1919, replacing the studio/shack with a photography studio as well as a living space.
Bottom photo: Yeager studio and residence as it looked after being remodeled in 1928.
Perhaps the most unusual article about Alice Yeager is one that appears in the newspaper in 1935, when she is one of the local business owners profiled in a special series called “Show Your Hand”. This was a featured series written by Alice Denton Jennings for the Birmingham News. Jennings was a woman who made a name for herself in the 1930s and 1940 doing “palm readings” of people like Babe Ruth and FDR, to name but two of her most famous clients clients. The 1935 “Show Your Hand” series in the Birmingham News shared “palm readings” of many of the local small business owners. Here’s Alice Yeager’s “Show Your Hand” profile:
Birmingham News, May 24, 1935.
You’ve got to admit, this is a somewhat unique way to get publicity. It’s a curiosity, if nothing else.
I’m not sure that the palm reading adds much to our understanding of her photography achievements, though. But in any case, Alice Yeager’s remarkable photography career was truly noteworthy for her many accomplishments and accolades, as well as her longevity. I’ll leave off today with a her own description of her career success, as quoted in that 1932 article about her business:
“Like all others who have undertaken the development of a business, I have oftentimes met with discouragement and disappointment, but economic necessity and a genuine love of my work have forced me on. … What I have done, others can do; for the secret of whatever success I have met with has been merely a matter of hard work coupled with a determination to succeed in that in which I have been most interested, and in which I feel my greatest talent lies.” –Alice Yeager,
Shelby Country Reporter, January 28, 1932
P.S. Just a quick housekeeping note: the clipping I have included at the top of this post, the one with the photo of Alice Yeager along with the announcement of her becoming the PNPA – Alabama Chapter’s VP, is technically the result of a little digital magic. You see, the photo of Alice Yeager in the original digital scan of the newspaper that I found on the internet was far too dark to use here on the blog. However, the same photo of Alice Yeager also appeared in the newspaper in June 1924. So, rather than settle for a bad scan of the photo for today’s post, I chose to make a “composite”, where I took the clearer scan of the photo from the June 1924 newspaper article, and used it with the text of the August 1924 article. The resulting composite clipping is entirely faithful to the original, but what you see at the top is NOT actually the clipping from the August 1924 article.
In other words, the composite I made of the 1924 clipping is better to show off Alice Yeager and her accomplishments. I hope Alice Yeager would have approved. 🙂
