There's a excellent short biography of Frances Benjamin Johnston here. Her amazing life included, among many other things, White House Photographer to Presidents. If I may, quoting the last three paragraphs from Johnston's Clio profile.

She went about the South in a chauffeur-driven automobile locating old buildings, and it was said that she could "smell out an old colonial house five miles off the highway." Her mission was not to photograph the prominent homes of colonial America, which, she argued, had already "been photographed often and well." Rather, she sought "the old farm houses, the mills, the log cabins of the pioneers, the country stores, the taverns and inns, in short those buildings that had to do with the everyday life of the colonists." She did her work well, and two books resulted from this venture, "Early Architecture of North Carolina" and "Early Architecture of Georgia." In 1945 she was awarded an honorary membership in the American Institute of Architects.

Johnston moved to New Orleans in 1940 and entered a life of semi-retirement. Always independent, she lived a rather lonely life in her last years, but her energy did not subside. She bought a run-down house on the "respectable" end of Bourbon Street and transformed its dilapidated courtyard into a beautiful garden with a small pool. Continuing to pursue her interests in gardening, she often went out in her old Buick to give lectures. Her active days in the darkroom were over, even though she maintained a photographic work area in an alcove off her bathroom.

Age was slowing her down. She walked with a cane, and her doctor weaned her from bourbon, so she drank cherry wine instead. Even at this stage of her life she remained staunchly indomitable. "I've learned not to depend on the Lord. I'll make the changes myself." She loved to roam the French Quarter and sit in bars and talk. Once when someone recognized her as a famous photographer, she agreed, "Yes, I'm the greatest woman photographer in the world."

Thanks for introducing her to us.

First!