NOCTURNE

Night ⎯

The storm descends.

The wind-blown streets deserted lie.

Save here and there,

One, homeward bound,

Buffets his way along.

This poem by Jessie Tarbox Beals was published opposite this photograph, which appeared as a halftone plate titled Washington Arch, in her self-published 1928 volume Songs of a Wanderer. The photograph depicts a pedestrian walking at night in a snowstorm through Washington Square Arch, located in Greenwich Village in New York City. She also reproduced this poem in her 1915 Christmas card, A Nocturne of New York, which can be seen in this archive.

Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870-1942) is credited as being one of the first female photojournalists. Although Canadian-born, New England and Massachusetts would play formative roles in her early life. According to a short online biography provided by the New-York Historical Society, which holds an extensive archive of her work, Jessie was only 17 when she moved to Williamsburg, Mass from Hamilton, Ontario to join an older brother. There, her first job was teaching:

seven pupils in a one-room schoolhouse for $7 a week… later, she became interested in photography the following year in 1888 after acquiring her first camera in a magazine contest. Shortly, she became a professional after investing $12 and bought a Kodak camera, with which she established a photo studio on the front lawn of her home. Local residents came to have their portraits taken, or to ask for pictures of their houses and other possessions. Beals was aided in her commercial endeavors by groups of Smith College students, (from nearby Northampton-ed) who wanted pictures to be made of their parties and picnics. By the end of two summers she was making more money taking photographs than teaching school.