Martha Kreisel – författare

American women have made significant contributions to the field of photography for well over a century. This bibliography compiles more than 1,070 sources for over 600 photographers from the 1880s to the present. As women's role in society changed, so did their role as photographers. In the early years, women often served as photographic assistants in their husbands' studios. The photography equipment, initially heavy and difficult to transport, was improved in the 1880s by George Eastman's innovations. With the lighter camera equipment, photography became accessible to everyone. Women photographers became journalists and portraitists who documented vanishing cultures and ways of life. Many of these important female photographers recorded life in the growing Northwest and the streets of New York City, became pioneers of historic photography as they captured the plight of Americans fleeing the Dust Bowl and the horrors of the concentration camps, and were members of the Photo-Secessionist Movement to promote photography as a true art form. This source serves as a checklist for not only the famous but also the less familiar women photographers who deserve attention.

While the Internet is an important source for locating photographic images, there still are hundreds of photography books published each year for whose contents there is no external access. This second supplement to Photography Books Index addresses this need by analyzing important photographic anthologies that were published since 1985. Accessing more than fifty photographic anthologies that are widely held in libraries across the country—along with images from two critical annual compilations, Best of Photojournalism and Graphis Annual—this book identifies photographs that record the history of our times. With nearly twice the number of works indexed in the first supplement, Photography Books Index III: A Subject Guide to Photo Anthologies cites a wider scope of publications. This reference guide provides an important index to contemporary as well as historical photographers, including those for whom full monographs have not been published. Photographs of important individuals as well as photographic records of cataclysmic events such as war, genocide, and mass starvation also can be located through this index. Extensive descriptions of the individual photographs—from the commonplace to the extraordinary—are identified in this volume. Organized into three sections—Photographers, Subjects of Photographs, and Portraits of Named Individuals—these descriptions provide the researcher with important information on each photograph. An essential volume for all public, special and academic libraries, this index will be an invaluable resource for reporters, historians, academics, students and anyone wishing to research photographs and photographers.