5 Historical Heroines Born in December
By Paula Vellet
Gisele Freund born 19 December 1908
Born into a Jewish family in Berlin Gisèle (1908-2000) was given her first camera in 1925.
A committed socialist, Gisèle studied sociology and art history first in Germany and then at the Sorbonne after fleeing to Paris in 1933.
She went on more than 80 photojournalism assignments, primarily for Life and Time Magazine. Her ability to connect with her artistic subjects allowed her to photograph them in candid, unguarded moments became her trademark.
She became president of the French Federation of Creative Photographers in 1977, and was one of the first women to receive the Grand Prix National des Arts (1980) and the Chevalier de la Légion d’ Honneur in 1983.
Gerti Deutsch born 19 December 1908
Born in Vienna in1908 to Jewish parents, Gerti (1908-1979) first took a degree at the Music Academy (1932), then qualified in photography at the Graphic Arts Institute (1935).
She assisted at Trude Fleischmann’s famous portrait studio, but preferred making more informal portraits of musicians, composers and artists. In 1936, she left for London where she shared a portrait studio off Bond Street with the modernist photographer Barbara Ker-Seymer. In October 1938, she became the first female photographer (and staffer) on Picture Post, a new weekly picture magazine, and married its future editor, Tom Hopkinson.
Picture Post published 69 of Deutsch’s photo- stories between 1938- 1950, from the docking of the first shipload of Jewish refugee children on the Kindertransport at Harwich (1938) to an 8-page feature on postwar Vienna, with harrowing scenes of returning Austrian POWs (1948).
Trude Fleischmann born 22 December 1895
A portrait photographer for more than fifty years, Austrian- born American Trude Fleischmann (1895–1990) was one of a group of young, confident, Jewish, woman photographers opening their own studios in Vienna after World War I. These women forged their careers in what was then considered an exclusively male profession.
This success was short-lived and Trude was forced to flee Nazi persecution in 1938, taking only around 40 of her negatives with her. she settled in New York, and opened a studio at 127 West 56th Street which she ran for 30 years with fellow Viennese émigré Frank Elmer. She photographed her émigré community, the likes of Albert Einstein among them.
Jessie Tarbox Beals born 23 December 1870
Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870 – 1942) was the first published woman photojournalist in the United States and the first woman night photographer. She was self-taught, initially working as a teacher before switching careers.
She received her first commission from the Boston Globe in 1899, joined the Buffalo Inquirer in 1901 and was the first woman to be given credentials at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. She often took her photographs at height, from ladders and balloons, lugging 50 lbs of 8 x 10” equipment and glass plate negatives.
Like her British contemporary Christina Broom, Jessie printed postcards – such as those of the Girls Scouts and Greenwich Village – to make extra money.
Christina Broom born 28 December 1862
Britain’s pioneering female press photographer, Christina Broom, (1862-1939) took up photography only in her 40s, in 1903. She borrowed a box camera and taught herself to take photographs and print postcards to sell to support her family. Her daughter Winifred (Winnie) was her assistant, helping carry the heavy tripod and camera on location as well working in the dark room.
Christina was the official photographer to H.M Household Brigade from 1904-39, selling her work from a small stall outside the gates of the Royal Mews. She was afforded the privilege to photograph the King and Queen and the Royal Family at close quarters, one of the first photojournalists of her time.
