A Web of Connections: How Early Twentieth-Century American Women Writers and Photographers Situated a New Way of Seeing
type: CreativeWork
description: While there are several studies of the relationships and influences between American male photographers and writers, this study examines the lesser known and understudied collaborations and connections between early, twentieth-century American women photographers and writers, beginning around the end of the nineteenth century and extending into the 1930s. The web of connections between women writers and photographers, connections created through influence, through mentorship, through friendship, or through collaboration, provided a space in which they could situate a new way of seeing and defining each other as women and as artists, and it manifested in the empathetic manner in which they presented and interacted with their subjects in photographs and on the page. This new way of seeing also involved the generation of a visual ethics and the application of a gendered aesthetic that broadened the notion of what was worth seeing and representing outside of the predominantly white, male-dominated society’s determination of what were acceptable subjects and methods with regard to cultural production. For example, photographer Gertrude Käsebier’s friendship with Native American writer Zitkála-Šá created the space wherein they collaborated on photographic portraits of Zitkála-Šá that refuted the dominant white culture’s stereotypes of Native American women. Willa Cather and photographer Laura Gilpin were connected through a shared passion for the geography and the Native American cultures of the American Southwest and may have inspired each other with their depictions and descriptions of that region, which even prompted Gilpin to suggest a collaboration with Cather to illustrate one of her novels, though the proposed project never materialized. Katherine Anne Porter and photographer Tina Modotti were connected through their involvement in the cultural renaissance in post-revolutionary Mexico in the 1920s and through their depictions of indigenous Mexicans. Finally, photog…
abstract: While there are several studies of the relationships and influences between American male photographers and writers, this study examines the lesser known and understudied collaborations and connections between early, twentieth-century American women photographers and writers, beginning around the end of the nineteenth century and extending into the 1930s. The web of connections between women writers and photographers, connections created through influence, through mentorship, through friendship, or through collaboration, provided a space in which they could situate a new way of seeing and defining each other as women and as artists, and it manifested in the empathetic manner in which they presented and interacted with their subjects in photographs and on the page. This new way of seeing also involved the generation of a visual ethics and the application of a gendered aesthetic that broadened the notion of what was worth seeing and representing outside of the predominantly white, male-dominated society’s determination of what were acceptable subjects and methods with regard to cultural production. For example, photographer Gertrude Käsebier’s friendship with Native American writer Zitkála-Šá created the space wherein they collaborated on photographic portraits of Zitkála-Šá that refuted the dominant white culture’s stereotypes of Native American women. Willa Cather and photographer Laura Gilpin were connected through a shared passion for the geography and the Native American cultures of the American Southwest and may have inspired each other with their depictions and descriptions of that region, which even prompted Gilpin to suggest a collaboration with Cather to illustrate one of her novels, though the proposed project never materialized. Katherine Anne Porter and photographer Tina Modotti were connected through their involvement in the cultural renaissance in post-revolutionary Mexico in the 1920s and through their depictions of indigenous Mexicans. Finally, photog…
author: Krause, Kristina
keywords: American Literature, Photography, English Language and Literature
date published: 2020-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:39:50Z
provider: Claremont Graduate University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Claremont Graduate University