A Rare Look Back at the Earliest Women in Photography

These days, the idea of singling out a group so broad as “women photographers” sounds passé. In fact, you’re likely able to name at least a couple—Diane Arbus or Cindy Sherman, anyone?—off the top of your head. But it’s worth remembering that, for well over a century, this wasn’t the case. Not that women weren’t taking photographs, (and good ones at that); their talent wasn’t getting the recognition it deserved, and indeed still barely is today. “Women’s Work: A Survey of Female Photographers,” an exhibition on view at Florida’s Museum of Fine Arts through September 11, aims to correct that wrong. It took a full 150 years, for example, for a museum to acknowledge that the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, a pioneering 19th-century photographer, merited an exhibition. And while you may have come across her name since the V&A stepped up to the plate, you’re not alone if you aren’t familiar with some of the ones that follow. Get a taste of their little-known legacies with a look inside the show, below.