Just who was Janet M. Cummings? When I first wrote about her in 2016, I knew almost nothing about her beyond the fact that she was one of the earliest female photographers to have photographs published in National Geographic, Popular Science, and in such august newspapers as the New York Times.
Janet Matheson (later Janet M. Cummings) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on 7 June 1893 to British journalist Frederick Matheson and his wife. According to a later passport application, Janet lived in England from 1900 to 1904, and again from 1907-1909, before settling in Manhattan, New York, where she worked as a photographer.
On 6 March 1911, Janet married Raymond King Cummings (1887-1957), a New York-born chemist, musician and phonographer who was an assistant to Thomas Edison. The couple’s only child, Harry, was born on 20 February 1912.
Ray Cummings, a noteworthy science fiction writer ( “one of founding fathers of science fiction in America”) and the author of The Girl in the Golden Atom (1922) and more than a dozen other books, married Gabriele Wilson. Ray’ pen names included Ray P. Shotwell and Robert Wallace. Ray Cummings married Gabriele Wilson, his second wife, in 1938; they used Gabriel Wilson as a joint pen name.
After the couple divorced in July 1919, Janet resumed her maiden name, and Harry became known as Harry Matheson, rather than Harry Cummings. The following year, Janet applied for a joint passport for herself (5’2″ tall, with blue eyes, straight black hair and a scar under her chin) and her son. Harry, who died in 1977, later worked as a scientist at the National Bureau of Standards laboratory.
Janet Matheson’s National Geographic credits include images of Mexico (“The Treasure Chest of Mercurial Mexico”) and of Australia (“Lonely Australia”), both published in 1916, and a photograph illustrating “From London to Australia by aeroplane” in 1921.
Water carriers at Lake Chapala. 1916. Credit: Janet M. Cummings / National Geographic.
One of Cummings’ National Geographic photos, published in July 1916, is entitled “Water sellers and their donkeys on the shores of Lake Chapala.” It appears to have been taken in Ocotlán, near the then-famed Ribera Castellanos hotel, and shows people collecting water from the lake to sell. The long stone bridge in the background of the photograph suggests it was taken near Ocotlán.
Janet M. Cummings stamped many of her photos with the address of her studio at 70, Fifth Avenue, New York City, and was most active as a photographer between 1915 and 1920. After her divorce, she moved to 43 East 29th Street.
She took an iconic image in 1915, published in the New York Times, of the beach at Southampton in England, showing “German prisoners captured in the recent British offensive in France.” The same newspaper also published photos taken by her captioned “Veterans of the London National Guard, Composed of Business Men Organized for Home Defense, Giving a Parade at Brighton, England’s Noted Seaside Resort” and “German Soldier Putting a Keener Edge on His Sword” (both published in the 25 April 1915 edition).
In 1916, besides photographing Lake Chapala, she took other photos in Mexico, including one of the Rio Grijalva in southern Mexico. In 1917, she was working in Australia, taking pictures of the state of Victoria and elsewhere. She is also known to have photographed Beirut, Jerusalem, and several other locations.
An article by W. Clement Moore in a 1916 photography magazine sheds some interesting light on how Janet Matheson Cummings worked to establish herself early in her career. She “secured early permission to photograph the exhibits” at an educational exhibit in New York City, which featured work from schools in numerous different cities and states. Matheson then sent “a selection of six to eight of the best prints of each exhibit [and detailed captions]… to the publishers, newspapers and educational journals located in the same State as the exhibit from which the prints were made.” She enclosed a letter “offering the publisher his choice of any of the prints at only $2.00 each. Many of the larger newspapers and periodicals sent checks at once for the entire set, while the majority of the others kept one or more.”
Janet Matheson also wrote occasional articles for US newspapers, including one titled “Women teach foreigners to feel at home in U.S.” in which she reviewed “America’s Making Exposition,” an event organized by sisters Elizabeth (a Harvard instructor) and Ruth Burchenal, and based on their 15 years of research into the life, folk dances and songs of “little frequented parts of Europe.” Matheson’s words remain eerily relevant today: “As long as America receives foreigners the peace of our social and economic life will depend on the tact of the individual American in his contact with the foreign born. . . .”
Janet Matheson died young, and was, sadly, no longer alive when her son, Harry, married in 1938.
If you are able to help, I am still interested in learning more more about the life and work of this early female photographer who brought Lake Chapala to the attention of the American public almost thirty years before the lake was visited in 1945 by another pioneering female National Geographic photographer, Dorothy Hosmer.
- This is an expanded version of a post first published 29 December 2016.
Sources
- The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York) 28 Jul 1901, 6.
- Detroit Free Press: 28 Mar 1920, 107.
- National Geographic: July 1916; December 1916; July 1918; March 1921.
- Janet Matheson. 1921. “Women teach foreigners to feel at home in U.S.” Atlantic City Gazette-Review: 23 Dec 1921, 4.
- W. Clement Moore. 1916. “Illustrating Educational Books and Journals,” The Camera: an Illustrated Magazine Devoted to the Advancement of Photography, Vol 20. 1916, 58.
- Cathy Newman. 2000. Women Photographers at National Geographic. National Geographic Society.
- The Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 30 Oct 1895, Page 2
- Popular Science: Nov 1916.
- New York Times: 25 April 1915.
Other photographers associated with Lake Chapala:
- Ernest Alexander (1921-1974)
- Hugo Brehme (1882-1954)
- Horace Bristol (1908-1997)
- Frederick W. Butterlin (1904-1981)
- John Frost (1923-2015)
- Michael Heinichen (1944-2012)
- Dorothy Hosmer (1910-2008)
- Ernest Walter Knee (1907-1982)
- Leo Matiz (1917-1998)
- Bertram W. Miller (1915-2005)
- Winfield Scott (1863–1942)
- Jacques Van Belle (1923-2012)
- Jack Weatherington (1933-2008)
Comments, corrections or additional material welcome, via the comments feature or email.
Tony Burton’s books include “Lake Chapala: A Postcard History” (2022), “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic” (2022), “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (2020), (available in translation as “Si Las Paredes Hablaran”), “Mexican Kaleidoscope” (2016), and “Lake Chapala Through the Ages” (2008).