American Life: Marguerite Baker Johnson

Sometimes a photograph makes an impact for all of the “wrong” reasons. Well, maybe not the wrong reasons, but not really the right reasons. Perhaps there’s nothing really special about the composition (though a few of them are superb), or even the subject matter itself, yet the feel of the photograph makes some sort of emotional connection with the viewer. That is exactly the case with this set, shot between 1957 and 1964 by photographer Marguerite Baker Johnson and simply called “American Life.” Again, there’s nothing extraordinary about most of the photographs if judged individually, but, collectively, the photographs in the set transcend their own banality and instead capture a portrait of a not so distant past that many of us never experienced first hand. It’s somehow in that distance that we see simpler, better times that we are only able to connect with through photographs. Unfortunately, there’s very little information about the photographer, save this brief description from an eBay seller offering a selection of her negatives: 

“Mrs. Johnson, a native of Brussels Belgium was a noted female photographer noted as the first woman to take photographs inside the arena at Cheyenne Frontier Days….a task formerly conducted by men due to the dangerous setting. Her photos appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Automotive Periodicals, London Times, Daily Mirror, Us Camera Annual, British Photography Yearbook, Popular Photography Annual while her esteemed son’s work appeared in Life Magazine, Fortune Magazine and many advertisements in the 1950s and 1960s.”

[via ASX]

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