Once upon a time in the 1920s a bored housewife took to the range with her camera to escape the drudgery of mopping the floor. Out among the Hereford cattle, the picturesque cowboys, and the fantastical Cheyenne and Crow tribes she found her proper avocation in capturing the evolving west. As cattle ranges shrank, sheep ranged in the mountains, and dudes added frantic activity to long summer days, Jessamine Spear Johnson photographed bucking broncos, stark snowy landscapes, budding prairie flowers, her Crow and Cheyenne neighbors, roundups and rodeos. Jessamine dared to be different. Side by side with her cowboy husband and seven venturesome children, this remarkable woman revealed the unchanging spirit of the rural west from the teens through the early 1950s. Being able to vote didn’t save her, a Kodak (Brownie) camera did.
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SMOKE SIGNALS: A Western Blog by Tempe Javitz
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