Biographical Note
One of the first women to achieve prominence as a photographer, Frances Benjamin Johnston opened a studio in Washington, D.C., in 1890, carrying out portrait and photojournalism assignments while also contributing to art photography and pictorialism. She entered into partnership with Mattie Edwards Hewitt, operating a New York City studio that specialized in architectural and garden photography, 1913-1917. Continuing this emphasis, Johnston toured the United States giving lantern slide lectures on gardens and architecture and contributed to architectural surveys, including two separate collections: the Pictorial Archives of Early American Architecture (1930) and the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South (1933-1937).
For a more extensive biography, see the Frances Benjamin Johnston: Biographical Overview and Chronology.