Two Tales of EWAP Research

Two quick announcements to share today:

1. Chris and I recently had fun giving a joint presentation, Women Artisan Photographers in the  Pioneer Valley: 1900-1930. Our talk was about early women photographers (EWAPs) from the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts. We talked about women who had professional careers in the early 20th century, including the Allen Sisters, who have been written about on the Internet; a woman that I talked about years ago (Clara Ober-Towne); and some that were less well known, like most of the EWAPs I typically talk about here on Photographs, Pistols & Parasols. Our talk was at the Pioneer Valley HistoryFest, sponsored by the Pioneer Valley History Network (there is no recording of this talk).

We had a nice crowd turn up who asked interesting questions – plus we got a couple of leads on more early women photographers to look for. Nice!

Back in 2017 I gave my first talk about EWAPs at a similar event sponsored by the same group, so it was fun to go back there again this year. At the time I even talked about Clara Ober-Towne and her fun advertising, which wasn’t part of our talk about her this time, but it’s worth a mention again here since it’s one of my favorites.

2. Chris and I recently co-authored, with John Felix, another article for the Photographic Historical Society of New England’s annual publication, The Journal (click here for info on our first article). Our new article appears in the 2025 edition of The Journal, which was published in March 2026. This time around our article is about a photographer named Annie Pratt, who ran the Whitman Studio in Chelsea, Massachusetts and Malden, Massachusetts in the early part of the 20th century.

Here’s the cover of The Journal — our article, Helen Keller, Annie Pratt and the Whitman Studio, is the cover story! [Note: the photo used on the cover can be found at the Library of Congress – click here to see more information about it.]

Annie Pratt’s family had a personal connection to Helen Keller, and Pratt’s Whitman Studio took photos of Helen Keller as a young woman (after she graduated from Radcliffe). You can read all about it in our article.  🙂

Chris and I really want to extend our thanks to PHSNE and The Journal editors, Ron Polito and John Felix, as well as to the rest of the PSHNE Journal staff for their encouragement and support. 

Also, I want to give a special shout out to John Felix, who went out of his way to contact the both the Pratt family and the Malden, MA library in order to track down and gather some fantastic materials, including local newspaper articles and Pratt family photos. All of those materials are included in the article. What great finds! Thanks again, John.

P.S. Faithful followers of Photographs, Pistols & Parasols may also recognize John Felix’s name from a few years back when I interviewed him for a podcast episode about Clara Ober-Towne. John has done extensive research on the Towne family, which is what my podcast interview was all about.