Jessie Tarbox Beals Photographs Santa Barbara

Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870-1942) became America’s first female news photographer when The Buffalo Inquirer and Courier of New York hired her as a staff photographer in 1902. The road to a career in photography, however, began in 1888 when she won a camera for selling magazine subscriptions. At the time, she was living with her brother in Massachusetts and teaching school. She soon started earning extra money with her camera by offering to take portrait shots of students at the nearby college for a dollar.

In 1897 she married Alfred Tennyson Beals, and after she quit her teaching career in 1900, they opened a door-to-door portrait and general photography studio. Though the studio failed, thanks to her tenaciousness and passion for photography she slowly became known in the journalistic world dominated by men. She was ambitious and versatile, proving over and over again that she was someone who could get the photographic story. 

In 1903, her editors were impressed when she was not deterred by the proclamation that a murder trial was closed to photographers. She had climbed atop a bookcase to take photos through the transom, and she earned her first exclusive. In 1904, she was not granted a press pass for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Nevertheless, she found a way to photograph people and events, and she eventually became the official photographer at the Fair for several national newspapers.

Her work ran the gamut from documentary images to portraits to cityscapes to news events to nocturnes to gardens and to institutions. Her photographs appeared in dozens of national magazines such as The Craftsman, Harper’s Bazaar, McClure’s,and American Homes and Gardens. 

Santa Barbara

By 1928, Jessie was 58 and couldn’t maintain her previous energetic pace. She and her daughter Nanette moved to Santa Barbara where Jessie soon opened a residence and studio at El Paseo. She announced plans to photograph the next Fiesta celebration, and she was very quickly adopted into the cultural and social life of the town. 

The Morning Press took the opportunity to introduce her to Santa Barbara. “A rare personage indeed is this noted artist, discovered in a delightful studio in El Paseo yesterday, brim full of beautiful thoughts and enchanting sketches and portraits of many popular and well-known celebrities both here and in the east,” wrote the reporter. “Mrs. Beals, a newcomer to Santa Barbara – yes, and a personality of ravishing ingenuity, the study of human nature as she has met thru her profession, has been one of the joys of her life. … Her work is truly a revelation!”

When a few months later danseuse Ruth St. Denis performed at the opening of El Paseo’s Anacapa addition, Jessie Beals and daughter were among the local cultural and artistic luminaries present. Her name was touted along with the artistic Gledhills, Herters, Parshalls, Fletchers, Hydes, de Forests, and civic promoter Pearl Chase.

The list of the number of portraits Beals had taken of political, social, business and cultural leaders of the nations was quite long. When asked about it in Santa Barbara, she remarked, “‘Interesting faces,’ while stimulating, do not make up a gallery which attracts the public. I think I shall make portraits in the future of nothing but handsome men.” Beals was obviously joking since reviews of her portrait photography lauded her ability to reveal the inner personality and character of her famous subjects.

The Morning Press was happy to use Beals’ photographs of people and events during her time in Santa Barbara. When a Railroad Advertising group came to a meeting in Santa Barbara, the members posed for a photo on the iconic stairway in the El Paseo courtyard. Her portrait of pioneer Mrs. Jane Kimberly and her daughter in Fiesta dress captured a living piece of Santa Barbara’s past as did her photo of a group of old timers telling stories of the past. She also captured an image of candidate Herbert Hoover in the Avenue of the Flags in El Paseo.

Jessie was also a poet and about this time a friend published a book of her photographs accompanied by her poetry in a volume called Songs of a Wanderer. One of her poems was published in the local newspaper. Entitled, “Old Man Fear,” the poem’s artistic quality may be slim, but it is a sort of anthem for her life. 

It starts out “Old man fear/ he once got hold o’ me/ He hissed in my ear,/ “You might as well be dead./ There’s no use hoping./ There’s no use trying./ Nothing you can do,/But keep on sighing.” 

After another stanza, it ends, “Old man fear/ He must have been sleeping—/ For one fine day/ He slipped a gear./ I started laughing—/ ‘N I left off crying —/ Skies were blue—/ Flag of hope was flying —/ Birds were singing—/ Bells a ringing—/ ‘N gone for good/ Was old man fear.” 

Many were drawn to her poetry. One young woman, Winifred McGee, was so enthralled by Beals’ poem “Doreen,” that she set it to music where it would be played at a dinner dance Beals was hosting at El Paseo. Janssens Troubadours played the song.

In February 1929, a movie called Joy Street was being filmed in the El Paseo at night. At midnight, Jessie, who lived at her studio on the El Paseo balcony, took pity on two electricians who were working the spotlights from the balcony and offered to make them coffee. The newspaper reported, “Word that hot coffee was being made spread like wild-fire among the extras and helpers and soon the studio was packed with the cold and hungry movie folk. The phonograph was turned on and a regular supper party ensured.” 

Later Years

Beals left Santa Barbara at the end of 1929 and went to live in Los Angeles. She was back for several months in 1931 when she took a studio at Meridian Studios.

As she had done in New York for Albert and Adele Herter and their estate of Près Choisis in East Hampton, New York, she was soon taking garden and estate photos for Montecitans and Santa Barbarans. These photos would find their way into the magazine Arts and Decorations in 1931 and 1932, beginning with a feature on the first home George Washington Smith had designed on Middle Road in Montecito, El Hogar. This was the home that had launched Smith on his career in architecture. It had been quickly purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Craig Heberton, who had convinced Smith to sell to them.

Subsequent issues of the magazine were to feature Ty Gwyn on Pepper Lane; Las Tejas between Picacho Lane and Hot Springs Road; and Casa Aleli on Buena Vista Road. Not to be outdone by Montecito, Harold Chase’s home and gardens in Hope Ranch were also photographed by Beals. 

In May of 1931, House Beautiful published Jessie’s photographs of the cactus mural created by artist Adele Herter for Amy du Pont’s home in Montecito. The mural was a reproduction of the mural Adele had created for the Herters’ hotel, El Mirasol, which stood on the block of today’s Alice Keck Park Memorial Gardens. Frank Lloyd Wright had called it the most beautiful mural he had ever seen. For du Pont’s dining room, the Herters had designed all of the furnishings as well.

Beals and her daughter returned to New York in the mid-1930s. Though she continued to work photographing gardens and estates, the Depression and advancing age took its toll. No longer able to summon her scrappy, ambitious self, she fell into financial straits. Sadly, Jessie Tarbox Beals died destitute in the charity ward of Bellevue Hospital on May 30, 1942. Due to inability to store her work, much of her photographic work was lost or destroyed during her lifetime. Only a few copies of her book Songs of a Wanderer survive today due to, ironically, a fire in a storage unit. 

Sources: “Jessie Tarbox Beals” by Beverly W. Brannan, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Reading Room; contemporary newspapers