Lady Evelyn Cameron
the female photographer of the American West
by Kelsey Merritt
published in Issue No. 5: March/April 2020
Evelyn Cameron standing on Jim the horse, c.1905-1915. Evelyn Cameron Heritage. Terry, MT.
My family’s farm has sat at the site of where the Badlands and Yellowstone collide for four generations. My childhood was spent running barefoot to the river, collecting rocks and agates off the banks with my siblings, before irrigating the crops amidst clouds of mosquitoes. The history of the landscape of my childhood was documented in the paintings of C.M. Russell and the photographs of L.A. Huffman, two males chiefly responsible for the image of the American West in Montana. But, alongside these masculine documentations, I was also fiercely aware of the photographic documentation of a female photographer of the late 1800s, whose homestead had rested within an hour drive of my childhood home. This woman was known for her pioneer spirit, her incredible portraits of Eastern Montanans, and her devotion to the land. This woman was Evelyn Cameron.
Born to a wealthy English family south of London in 1868, Evelyn Cameron began her life far from the rugged landscape of Southeastern Montana. Cameron’s early childhood was spent attempting to push against her privileged surroundings— often caught running to hunt with her brothers, she developed an aptitude for the outdoors that led her to fall in love with Ewen Cameron, an ornithologist bird enthusiast, who she soon ran away with, much to her family’s distress. The two moved to Montana, following a frontier dream of wildness following a “honeymoon” in which the two explored the area. (1)
Terry, Montana was a small outpost along the Yellowstone River, just north of Miles City. With the construction of the Milwaukee Railroad in the late 1800s, the area boomed, growing around cattle, sheep, and later, the founding of farming in the area. (2) A town of just under 600 in 2017 according to the 2017 U.S. Census, Terry still constructs its business around agriculture, as well as the tourists that flock to the area for the main attractions: the hunting, the Badlands, and the history of Evelyn Cameron.
Terry Badlands, Megan Crawford
When Evelyn and Ewen found themselves in Terry, Montana in the 1880s, they thought they would build their fortune by training polo horses to export back to England. However, the harsh reality of life on the prairie soon made Evelyn aware of her upbringing did her no favors in this new place. She depended heavily on the female neighbors around her to teach her to become a ranch wife, bonding and developing a community that would later serve her photography work. (1)
Evelyn was unique in her love of her ranch chores, but also in the fact that she almost single-handedly ran the ranch, while Ewen pursued his hobby of tracking golden eagle patterns in Southeastern Montana following his failed business plans. (2) The livelihood of the pair rested on Evelyn’s shoulders, and she readily rose to the task, triumphant in this social turn of gender roles. She rode horses, worked the plow, harvested a large garden, milked the cows, and hunted regularly. She was a natural prairie dweller, finding herself at ease in the immense emptiness of Prairie County. (1)
But, despite all her hard work, life on the prairie remained difficult. From taking in boarders, to gardening, milking, and horse riding, Evelyn struggled to make ends meet. Regardless, she continued to keep avid diaries and notes, detailing her experiences in the great American West. As she grew more and more restless in her attempts to fund the ranch, she stumbled upon the puzzle of a glass plate camera, at the hands of a traveling boarder at her home. (2) After purchasing one for herself, Evelyn turned her camera to the strange land around her, hoping to take portraits for money, as well as make sense of the geography of her surroundings. (1)
Images by Kelsey Weyerbacher. Rare Specimen, 2016.
Among Evelyn’s first photographs were those of Ewen’s birds. The couple hoped to use Ewen’s research, with Evelyn’s photographs, to sell articles to magazines for money. However, without the use of a telephoto lens, Evelyn had to rely on her never-ending patience with animals to come close enough to the birds to photograph them. As a result of her efforts, Evelyn’s bird portraits became some of the earliest portraits of birds of the American West in their natural environments. (1)
Soon, Evelyn turned her camera to the communities of people she lived amidst. There was no money to be found in running a studio in a remote town such as Terry, so Evelyn took to her horse to ride and find photography work. Often traveling up to 50 miles a day, she sought out prairie workers, cowboys, railroad workers, and small communities interested in having their photos taken. Cameron quickly set herself apart from the distant, posed images of L.A. Huffman in her own portraits that detailed her relationships with the people of the prairie, often turning her camera most often on her neighbors and friends. (1)
In 1908, the construction of a new railroad brought immigrant workers and new customers to Evelyn’s business in addition to the new farmers who came to the prairie following the enlarged Homestead Act in 1909. But, Evelyn’s photography was unique in its focus on females. The women of the West were rugged, riding horses as men would, working cattle as men would, pulling plows as men would, and running households like no man could. Evelyn herself was unlike any woman of “civilized” nature, nearly getting arrested in Miles City for wearing a divided riding skirt on a trip into town. The Buckley sisters, neighbors of Evelyn’s, were among her prime photography subjects, being such incredible ropers and horse riders, that they were sought after for traveling Western Shows. But, with so much ranch work to be done, the sisters couldn’t be bothered to leave the family ranch. (1)
Ewen continued to pursue his bird hobby, leaving Evelyn in charge of the family finances. He grew sick, and distant, and Evelyn’s photography and journal entries soon modeled her attitude in this loneliness that ensued. But, her loneliness was soon remedied with the arrival of young Janet Williams, who Evelyn would befriend and mentor, allowing her to become excited in her surroundings again, as she introduced Janet to the same struggles she had faced as a young woman in the West. (2) Through music, horse riding, gardening, and photography, the two formed a lasting bond. (1)
Janet and Evelyn, doorway, 1910. Evelyn Cameron Heritage. Terry, MT.
In 1915, Ewen died in California, where they traveled to seek medical help for his long-lasting illness. (2) Evelyn returned to her ranch in Montana, finding their home had been robbed in their absence. So, she did what any practical, hardworking woman would do: she left the upturned mess to go outside and plow her garden. For the rest of her life, she continued to photograph and journal, and remained close friends with Janet Williams, with whom she left all her glass plates and photographs. (1)
Evelyn Cameron, the symbol of female pioneers in Eastern Montana, died at age sixty in 1928, after a routine appendectomy. While her heart failure following the procedure was unexpected, the way Cameron got to the doctor was in true pioneer fashion: riding her horse for 30 miles by herself. Traversing the landscape that had become her home— living out her last days as a true Montanan woman. (2)
Few outside of the Terry, Montana area knew who Evelyn Cameron was. It wasn’t until fifty years after her death that author Donna M. Lucey discovered thousands of forgotten glass plate negatives in the home of her now-elderly friend, Janet Williams. (2) With the profound discovery of these images came the work of the Prairie County Museum and Evelyn Cameron Heritage Organization in Terry, along with Lucey’s book, Photographing Montana 1894-1928: The Life and Work of Evelyn Cameron in 1991, and the award-winning PBS documentary “Evelyn Cameron: Pictures from a Worthy Life” released in 2009.
Like Evelyn, I find myself continually drawn back to the prairie. Nothing is more intoxicating than the smell of sagebrush following a summer thunderstorm, or the powerful waves that grass makes in a breeze across the plains. I am a prairie woman shaped by the powerful women before me who shaped the path for me through their mentorship. Evelyn Cameron pioneered photography for women like me, but she also pioneered the story of women in the American West. As Montana women, we are left with a legacy: to be ferocious in spirit, kind to our fellow women, and damn tough when life calls us forth.
"Fight Me" | Kelsey Weyerbacher, Ms. Melancholy.