Against The Odds: Women Pioneers in The First Hundred Years Of Photography

The history of photography, and women's role within that history, remains incomplete-despite the fact that the medium was invented more than 150 years ago. Pulitzer Prize nominee Martin Sandler's Against the Odds: Women Pioneers in the First Hundred Years of Photography, with its carefully balanced commentary on women who have been lost to the historical record as well as those who have received their due, makes a vital contribution to the literature on women photographers. Eight generously illustrated chapters explore the various genres which developed in the first 100 years after photography's invention, including portraiture (one of the earliest popular uses of photography); landscape; and photojournalism. The expert commentary by Martin Sandler reveals the hardships these women overcame and the considerable impact they made on the world of photography. The history of photography, and women's role within that history, remains incomplete-despite the fact that the medium was invented more than 150 years ago. Pulitzer Prize nominee Martin Sandler's Against the Odds: Women Pioneers in the First Hundred Years of Photography, with its carefully balanced commentary on women who have been lost to the historical record as well as those who have received their due, makes a vital contribution to the literature on women photographers. Eight generously illustrated chapters explore the various genres which developed in the first 100 years after photography's invention, including portraiture (one of the earliest popular uses of photography); landscape; and photo-journalism. The expert commentary by Martin Sandler reveals the hardships these women overcame and the considerable impact they made on the world of photography. The volume includes work by Dorothea Lange, who poignantly documented the hardships of Depression-era sharecroppers and Berenice Abbott, who is best known for her evocative shots of New York City. Margaret Bourke-White's considerable influence is detailed as the photojournalist who set the standard for press images through her work at Life magazine. Lesser known figures-who were well-known in their time-including early portraitists Catherine Barnes Ward and Frances Benjamin Johnston, captured turn-of-the century African-American daily life and as such contribute considerably to our understanding of our American past.