“So my amazing daughter, Emma, turned 5 last month, and I had been searching everywhere for new-creative inspiration for her 5yr pictures. I noticed quite a pattern of so many young girls dressing up as beautiful Disney Princesses, no matter where I looked 95% of the “ideas” were the “How to’s” of how to dress your little girl like a Disney Princess…We chose 5 women (five amazing and strong women), as it was her 5th birthday but there are thousands of unbelievable women (and girls) who have beat the odds and fought (and still fight) for their equal rights all over the world”
- Jaime Moore, Not Just a Girl
Gratia Alta Countryman (top) 1892
An image of Gratia (later director of Minneapolis Public Library and founder of Hennepin County Library) soon after she was hired by Minneapolis Public Library, posing in the library art gallery with fellow MPL staff.
Although she was engaged to marry Horace Winchell he ended up marrying another woman. They remained friends until he died. Gratia later entered into a “Boston Marriage” with librarian Marie Todd from 1902 until Marie’s death in 1940. Gratia wrote this to Marie in 1901, “Thee says in a letter just received that thee is staking everything on the chance of being with me, and I know thee is coming for love’s sake. But not staking, dear, there is no gamble in loving, there are only profits…”
Marie noticed a homeless boy at the library in 1917, Wellington Wilson. He spent many Saturdays and most school days in the children’s area of the downtown library reading books. Gratia looked into his background and realized he needed a foster home and volunteered to be his foster mother. She wrote, “We have taken a homeless little boy to live with us. He is nearly eight years old and bright and affectionate. We have grown very fond of him in the four weeks we have had him…if he turns out to be as nice a child as he seems, I may possibly adopt him.” After his adoption in 1918, Gratia and “Aunt Marie” both raised Wellington. He later wrote,”In those years, my mother was the disciplinarian while Aunt Marie was the arbitrator. One might say my mother performed the masculine role and Aunt Marie the feminine.” Wellington Countryman later married and had a daughter, Alta Marie Countryman in 1939.
This information is drawn from Jane Pejsa’s Gratia Countryman: her life, her loves and her library.
Boston marriage my foot- that was a marriage, plain and simple. I’m starting a campaign right here and now to take the ‘Boston’ out of gay history.
vsw:
The Shakespeare Death-Mask, A. W. Drake, ca. 1874
Photographic Processes: The Daguerreotype, 2012, 6:33 minutes, Produced by George Eastman House, Directed by Eggwork Productions, Funding provided by The Institute for Museum and Library Services
In 2012 George Eastman House produced a series of six videos on photographic processes for the exhibition Untold Stories, and this is the first in the series. I will post the remaining videos over the next couple of weeks. Enjoy!
Remake Project had been launched by the website Booooooom.com asking you to adapt a famous painting in photo.
Following the success and the many works submitted by users, the site is currently completing a compilation of the best projects in a self-published book. You have until February 22, 2013 to send your work.
“Self Portrait 1889″.Vincent van Gogh
“Pot Pourri”. Herbert James Draper
“Le Désespéré”. Gustave Courbet
« Weeping Woman”. Picasso
« Study for Portrait”. Francis Bacon
The Picasso one is brilliant.
Oh fuck. I have to do this! Edit: oops 2/13 :(
Morning, A Camera Study by Maurice Goldburg
An Allegorical Dancing Study - Life & Death by Maurice Goldburg.
Hazel Frost and Earl Nickerson (My Great Grandparents)
Tintype, 1910’s, New York
From my personal collection
![tuesday-johnson:
ca. 1860-80’s, [portrait of a woman in mourning]
via Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America, Jay Ruby](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvg5fhFfET1qa51rdo1_250.jpg)
ca. 1860-80’s, [portrait of a woman in mourning]
via Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America, Jay Ruby
![tuesday-johnson:
ca. 1850, [portrait of Professor John Collins Warren]
via Looking at Death, Barbara Norfleet](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvdx5qQLsN1qa51rdo1_250.jpg)
ca. 1850, [portrait of Professor John Collins Warren]
via Looking at Death, Barbara Norfleet
