Elizabeth Beachbard (c.1822–1861): America’s First Woman War Photographer?

The history of war photography has been dominated by men. Feminist photo historians have challenged this view, bringing to light outstanding women such as Gerda Taro in the Spanish Civil War and Lee Miller in the Second World War. Miller’s and Taro’s frontline photojournalism fits the masculinist canon of “authentic” war photography, but this mode has excluded most women. What happens if we go beyond the limits of the genre? Who else might come into view?

In this paper, I present the first dedicated research into Elizabeth Beachbard, a forgotten photographer who worked in Louisiana during the American Civil War (1861–1865). I chart her trajectory from an ambrotype portrait studio in New Orleans to a makeshift cabin in a military camp in rural Louisiana, where she photographed Confederate soldiers during the summer of 1861. It's a tale of twists and turns, including court cases, bigamy, a measles epidemic, and a devastating fire. One of my biggest finds is new evidence for an ambrotype hitherto unattributed to Beachbard, which constitutes only the third surviving example of her work.

While questions of gender are central to my paper, I shall not be arguing for essentialist notions of “feminine” photography. Instead, I highlight the gendered constraints of the epoch showing how Beachbard navigated social, political, economic and legal structures. It is ironic that portraiture, one of the few professions open to “respectable” women, was how Beachbard entered the masculine territory of a wartime army camp.

Elizabeth Beachbard could not be considered a war photographer in the conventional sense. Nonetheless, she worked in a military arena, made pictures of soldiers in wartime, and lost her life in the activity. She should be seen as a pioneering figure in the history of women’s photography: perhaps, even, as America’s first woman war photographer.