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This collection has use restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the FAQ section for more information.
Cupola House, Edenton, North Carolina; P006_58 (Cupola), in the Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection #P006, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Collection Overview
| Size | About 2,280 images (3.57 linear feet in 9 document boxes and five drawers in map case) |
| Abstract | Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) was a trained artist who turned her talents to photography and became one of the first prominent female photojournalists in the United States. After studying art at the Académie Julian in Paris, France and at the Art Students' League in Washington, DC; Ms. Johnston took up an interest in journalism and began doing illustrations for newspapers in 1885. She eventually turned to photography because she thought it was the more accurate machine and studied under Thomas William Smillie, head of the Division of Photography at the Smithsonian Institution. During her long and successful career Johnston took tens of thousands of photographs of scenes and events all over the United States with an emphasis on Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) Collection contains photographs made between 1935 and 1938 of historic structures of architectural interest throughout North Carolina. Many of the photographs in this collection subsequently appeared in The Early Architecture of North Carolina by Frances Benjamin Johnston and Thomas T. Waterman. |
| Creator | Johnston, Frances Benjamin, 1864-1952.
Boone, Samuel Moyle. |
| Language | English |
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Information For Users
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Subject Headings
The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.
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Related Collections
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Biographical Information
Frances Benjamin Johnston was born 15 January 1864 in Rochester, New York. Her family later moved to Washington, District of Columbia. In 1882, at the age of 18, she attended Notre Dame Convent in Govanston, Maryland. The following year Johnston departed for Paris, France, to study studied art at the Académie Julian. After her return from Paris in 1885, Johnston enrolled in the Art Students' League in Washington.
Johnston's interest in art shifted to journalism, her mother's occupation, and she began to make illustrations for newspapers. She eventually turned to photography because she thought it was "the more accurate machine" and studied under Thomas William Smillie, head of the Division of Photography at the Smithsonian Institution. Johnston worked on many important projects during her storied career, including the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South between 1933 and 1940. The survey was a systematic record of the early buildings and gardens in Maryland, Virgina, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi.
Johnston's original negatives for the project are at the Library of Congress, which has become "the principal repository" of her writings and photographs. The Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection at the Library of Congress includes approximately 20,000 photographs and 3,700 glass and film negatives. Images in the collection span the period 1864-1940, but the majority date between 1897 and 1927. In 1936, the American Council of Learned Societies paid Johnston $3,500 to photograph early North Carolina architecture.
She had three mentors for the project: from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Albert Ray Newsome, North Carolina historian and former history department chair and Howard Odum, sociologist of the American South, professor, and founder of the Sociology Department, the School of Public Welfare, the Department of City and Regional Planning, and the Institute for Research in Social Science; and from Duke University, William Boyd, history professor and first Director of the Libraries.
Frances Benjamin Johnston died in 1952. Source: The Woman Behind the Lens: the Life and Work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864-1952, by Bettina Berch. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000.
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Scope and Content
This collection contains 1,100 photographs created by Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) between 1935 and 1938 that document historic structures of architectural interest in forty-eight counties throughout North Carolina. The majority of the images in this collection were created from the original negatives in 1941. Many of the photographs subsequently appeared in The Early Architecture of North Carolina by Frances Benjamin Johnston and Thomas T. Waterman, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1941.
Johnston was a trained artist who turned her talents to photography and became one of the first prominent female photojournalists in the United States. After studying art at the Académie Julian in Paris, France and at the Art Students' League in Washington, DC, Ms. Johnston took up an interest in journalism and began doing illustrations for newspapers in 1885. She eventually turned to photography because she thought it was "the more accurate machine" and studied under Thomas William Smillie, head of the Division of Photography at the Smithsonian Institution. During her long and successful career Johnston took tens of thousands of photographs of scenes and events all over the United States with an emphasis on Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The majority of the materials in this collection are stored in record center boxes (boxes 1-9) and oversized items are stored in five map case drawers (boxes 10-14).
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Frances Benjamin Johnston Collection, 1935-1938.
Arrangement: Subject.
This series contains approximately 2,280 images. A majority of the images are stored in record center boxes (1-9) and oversized items are in five map case drawers (listed as boxes 10-14). The materials in boxes 1-9 came to the North Carolina Collection from either Samuel Boone (accession 1676-2533) or the Cannon family (accession 2534-2742). The oversized materials came to the North Carolina Collection (via the Southern Historical Collection) from John Sprunt Hill (accession 2757-2968).
Processed by: North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives
Encoded by: Patrick Cullom, July, 2009
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