She was a pioneering photojournalist and documentary photographer. In 1895 Johnston opened her own photography studio. Among her notable subjects were Susan B. Anthony, Alice Roosevelt, Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, Joel Chandler Harris, and Isadora Duncan.

She became the official White House photographer for the administrations of Presidents Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft.

One of her most famous photographs is that of President McKinley, taken shorlty before he was shot in Buffalo.

Johnston also took a number of photographs of nude females. She also created images of sailors dancing together.

Also, she moved into the field of social photography, where she became noted as an important photodocumentarian for her images of students in Washington schools, at the Hampton Institute in Virginia and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama--both founded to educate newly freed slaves--and the Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

She always respected her subjects equally, presenting black students in a carpentry class with as much dignity as Presidents and debutantes.

At the Paris Exposition of 1900, she curated an exhibition of photographs by twenty-eight women photographers. Also, she was responsible for technical innovations.

She retired in New Orleans. Her estate donated photographs to the Library of Congress.
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She had a great three-page story with pictures in the May 2010 Smithsonian magazine.

See also the book: The Woman Behind The Lens, by Bettina Berch, 2000, 171 pages.

And Wikipedia and other searches on WWW.Google.com
∼Chronology from the Library of Congress (Reference aid compiled by Helena Zinkham in 2011.)

1864 Born Frances Benjamin Johnston on January 15th in Grafton, WV, to Frances Antoinette Benjamin and Anderson Doniphan Johnston

by 1875 Moved with her family to Washington, DC; mother wrote articles for newspapers in Washington and Baltimore; father worked at the Treasury Department

1882 Published first article, "Old Things Have Passed Away," in Saint Nicholas Magazine

1883 Graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland Collegiate Institute for Young Ladies in Govanstown, MD (now part of Baltimore City)

1883-85 Studied drawing and painting at the Académie Julian in Paris, France.

By 1886 Returned to DC and studied at the Art Students’ League (later incorporated in the Corcoran Gallery School), enjoying a Bohemian life

1888? Began to study photography with Thomas Smillie at the Smithsonian Institution

1889-1910s Wrote photo-illustrated articles for Demorest’s Family Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Weekly, Ladies’ Home Journal, and other periodicals. Subjects included the U.S. Mint, mines, cathedrals, steamships, and portraits.

Worked as a news photographer for George Grantham Bain, NY, who ran the first news photo syndicate in the United States

Accepted as unofficial “court photographer” with access to the White House during the Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt administrations

1891 Exhibited photographs at her first show—the Cosmos Club in DC
Recognized as a pictorialist photographer and exhibited at art galleries in New York City

1892-93 Photographed the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL, as one of the official photographers

By 1895 Opened her own commercial studio behind her parent’s house at 1332 V Street NW, Washington, DC, specializing in portraits
Published her photographs in illustrated books about the White House and Mammoth Cave

1897 Wrote "What A Woman Can Do With A Camera," for Ladies Home Journal

1899 Documented Washington, DC, public schools. Documented Admiral Dewey and USS Olympia crew, as they returned from the Spanish-American War. Documented Hampton Institute, Hampton, VA

1900 Participated in the Universal Exposition, Paris, France; won a gold medal for her photographs of public school education in DC; won a grand prize for her photographs of the Hampton Institute. Organized exhibition and lectured on art photos by women for the International Congress of Photography, held in Paris during the exposition

1901 Took the last photograph of President McKinley, shortly before his assassination at the Buffalo Exposition

1902 Documented Tuskegee Institute, Alabama

1903 Documented open-pit iron mining operations in Mesabi Range, MN

1904 Photographed at St. Louis Exposition; member of the liberal arts jury

1905 While traveling in Europe, visited the Lumières and learned the new color photography process called autochrome

1909 Received first architectural commission, photographing the New Theatre in New York City, for John M. Carrère

1910s-1930s Photographed, researched, and lectured on gardens

1913-17 Operated a New York City studio in partnership with photographer Mattie Edwards Hewitt, specializing in house and garden photography

1915 and 1928 Published photographs in Louise Shelton, Beautiful Gardens in America

1925 Traveled and photographed in Europe and the Middle East

1926 Restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, VA, began with Reverend William Archer Rutherford Goodwin, part of a growing interest in historic preservation and documenting historic structures.

1927-1944 Created what today is called the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South by photographing in nine southern states and documenting more than 1,700 sites in more than 7,000 photographs (funding through the Carnegie grants began in 1933)

1927-29 Photographed Chatham (estate restored by Helen Devore) and then nearby Fredericksburg and Old Falmouth, VA (both funded by Mrs. Devore)

1929 Exhibited "Pictorial Survey--Old Fredericksburg, Virginia--Old Falmouth and Other Nearby Places" in Fredericksburg, VA. Prints shown at Library of Congress in 1930

1930-48 Pictorial Archives of Early American Architecture (PAEAA) began at the Library of Congress in May 1930, with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. Early on, the Library purchased 156 negatives of Virginia from Johnston [Note: Contrary to previously published accounts, the PAEAA accession register identifies Johnston as the source for only 1% of the 10,000 PAEAA images.]
by 1930. Took photographs to illustrate a survey of early churches. Book: Brock, Henry I. Colonial Churches in Virginia, ...Photographic Studies by Frances Benjamin Johnston. (Richmond: Dale Press, 1930)
by 1932 Had created about 1,000 negatives of historic buildings, mainly made in Alexandria, Leesburg, Fredericksburg, Winchester, Charlottesville, and Richmond areas of Virginia. Also sold prints to Metropolitan Museum of Art

1933 Historic American Buildings Survey began, administered by the Library of Congress, National Park Service, and American Institute of Architects

1933 Received first grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York ($3,500 administered by Library of Congress) to document Virginia by making prints from new and existing negatives for the University of Virginia, with negatives to be deposited at the Library of Congress; working with with Leicester B. Holland (chief, Prints & Photographs Division at the Library) and Edmund S. Campbell (University of Virginia)

1934 Received second grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York ($2,500) to document Virginia

1935 Received third grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York ($3,500) to document Virginia

1936 Received fourth Carnegie grant, to photograph Maryland, North Carolina, and South Carolina ($4,500). Received a fifth grant, from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, to photograph St. Augustine, FL ($500)

1937 Received sixth and final Carnegie grant; used primarily in 1937-39 to photograph in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The Carnegie Survey includes a few additional photos taken as late as 1944.
Held six exhibitions in different cities: Baltimore, MD; Chapel Hill, NC; Charleston, SC; New Orleans, LA; St. Augustine, FL; and Washington, DC

1938 Book: Stoney, Samuel G. Plantations of the Carolina Low Country (Charleston: Carolina Art Association, 1938, 1945); the plates (p. 85-233) are from photographs by Johnston and Ben Juda Lubschez

1941 Book: Early Architecture of North Carolina: A Pictorial Survey by Frances Benjamin Johnston, with an Architectural History by Thomas T. Waterman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1941, 1947)

By 1945 Moved to New Orleans, LA, and settled by 1946 at 1132 Bourbon St., in the French Quarter

1945 Became an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects "for her notable achievement in recording photographically the early architecture of the United States"

1947 Exhibited photographs at the Library of Congress

1952 Died in New Orleans on May 16 at age 88; buried in Rock Creek Park Cemetery, Washington, DC