Gertrude Kasebier

Gertrude Kasebier was born on May 18, 1852 in Iowa. At age eight, her family moved to the capital of Colorado,where her father was elected mayor. Her father suddenly died in 1864 and the family relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where her mother opened a boarding house to support the family. From 1866 to 1870, Kasebier lived in Pennsylvania with her grandmother and attended Bethlehem Female Seminary. In 1874, on her birthday, a twenty-two year old Gertrude married a twenty-eight year old Eduard Kasebier. They had three children together, but soon grew apart. Gertrude was miserable in the marriage which inspired her 1915 photograph Yoked and Muzzled- Marriage. She even went as far as to say, "If my husband goes to Heaven, I want to go to Hell". She said that nothing she did was ever good enough for him, but since divorce was unheard of during that time, they just lived separate lives. Despite their differences, he helped put her through art school back in Brooklyn at the Pratt Institute, then eventually over seas. She returned to the U.S. because her husband grew ill and the family's finances were in shambles. Despite this minor set back, Kasebier continued to push her career forward and took on an apprenticeship at a portrait studio. She exhibited 150 photographs at the Boston Camera Club and at the Pratt Institute where she lso encouraged other women to take up photograph as a career. Kasebiers most famous pcitures are of Native Americans. Alfred Steglitz published six of her photographs in Camera Works and he became one of the first female members of the linked ring. She later had a clash with Steiglitz. She died in 1910.


Miss N
Clarence White Sr.
John Murray Anderson
Indian Chief
The Red Man

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