Today we meet another early PICT, Susan Maude Martin, née Richard.
Quick note: Over the course of Susan Maude Martin’s life, she changed which name she used, going sometimes by S. Maude Martin, and at other times as Maude S. Martin. I will use “Susan Maude Martin” in this post, since I don’t know what she really preferred.
Anyway, Susan Maude Martin was born in Pennsylvania in 1874. She married photographer William S. Martin in 1907. Originally from Denmark, William Martin had, by 1907, already been running successful “Martin Studios” for photography all over Connecticut.
Unlike Emily Appelquest, Susan Maude Martin was an active partner in the Martin Studios. As I mentioned, there were Martin Studios in towns all across Connecticut, including ones in towns like Willimantic, Norwich, and Hartford.
BTW, it’s worth noting that Susan Maude Richard was active in photography even before her marriage. In fact, according to wedding announcements, (published in various Connecticut newspapers in 1907), Susan Maude Martin had been working as an assistant photographer in William Martin’s studio in Norwich, CT for over a year prior their wedding.
Anyway, by 1930 Susan Maude and William had studios in both Norwich, CT and Westerly, Rhode Island. Westerly is just across the Pawcatuck River from Stonington, Connecticut, the town that the couple had moved to in 1919.
But then in March 1930, her life under went a dramatic change:
After the 63-year-old William dies in his wife’s arms on the floor of their Westerly studio in 1930, Susan Maude Martin sells off their Norwich studio but continues to run the Westerly studio on her own for another 10 years, eventually even moving her home from Stonington to Westerly, too.
During this period, she takes out ads for the studio, such as the following one that appeared in the 1933 city directory in Westerly:
BTW, here’s a photo produced by the Martin Studio in Westerly:
(Photo courtesy McIntyre-Culy Collection)
That article I references above, about William Martin’s death in 1930, mentions that “Both Mr. and Mrs. Martin were working in the studio, at 52 High street, as is their custom in the spring when their spring rush starts of taking photographs of local and Stonington high school students.” (The Day, March 20, 1930). One can imagine that the studio photo above of the young man would have been the kind of school photo the Martins typically took during their “spring rush”. Unfortunately, the photo above is undated, so it’s unclear if it dates to before or after William Martin’s death in 1930.
Susan Maude Martin finally retires from photography circa 1940. She dies 5 years later at the age of 71. Even though she did spend much of her career in Westerly, Rhode Island, Susan Maude Martin is still celebrated here on Photographs, Pistols & Parasols as an Early PICT.
P.S. To show why I had trouble figuring out what name to use for her, I thought I’d share the following listing for her in the residence section of the 1933 Westerly, RI directory. In this directory, she’s listed as both “S. Maude Martin” and “Maude S. Martin”:
I didn’t want to put that listing at the top of the post, since it would have given away the fact that by 1933 Susan Maude Martin was the widow of William S. Martin. But, perhaps now you can see why I couldn’t decide how to refer to her in this post, since in the same directory she hadn’t decided how to refer to herself!
