Vintage Cameras & Mid-Century Female Photographers Who Redefined the Craft

I own a white Beacon II camera which once belonged to my mother. The Beacon II, made by Whitehouse Products Inc. of Brooklyn, NY, was manufactured between 1947 and 1955, which honestly surprised me because my mother was born a few years after this timeframe. Perhaps she got it once her own parents, my grandparents, were done using it and were ready to upgrade to a newer model or something.

This compact, user-friendly camera was designed to help make photography accessible to a broader audience during the mid-20th century. Previously, photography had been a professionals’ game.

The Vintage Beacon II Camera: Design and Features

My vintage camera and matching case

My vintage camera is made from Bakelite, a durable early synthetic plastic. The Beacon II features a built-in viewfinder and a collapsible lens panel, which protected the lens when not in use and also prevented accidental exposures. It came in a few colors, including black, white, turquoise and red. Mine also came with a cool matching carrying case.

The camera was apparently priced at just under $10 (roughly $130 today) for the camera plus $5 (about $65) for the flash unit, making the Beacon II an affordable option for amateur photographers. I assume this was part of how it ended up in the hands of my own family, none of whom are professional photographers.

With its straightforward design, low price point and ease of use, the Beacon II helped to democratize photography in the post-war era. Photography in the 1950s was both dynamic and transformative, driven by technological advancement, changes in artistic styles and growing accessibility beyond professionals. This time period laid the foundation for modern photography as both an art form and a popular hobby.

Technological Advancements and Popular Cameras

The 1950s saw a wave of innovation that made cameras more reliable, smaller and easier to use, encouraging amateur photography. Popular models of the day include the Kodak Brownie, Leica IIIF and Rolleiflex, which offered better lenses, integrated light meters and improved film-loading tech (I sound like I know what I’m talking about, don’t I??). 

The Beacon II camera, like other affordable models, helped bring photography into more homes, making it accessible for more people. The ‘50s marked a shift in photography towards an everyday activity, especially in middle-class households like my family’s. 

With this shift, more families started to document their own vacations, holidays and special occasions. Kodak’s marketing both mirrored and accelerated this trend with its iconic “Kodak moments,” encouraging people to record life’s milestones.

Photojournalism & the Rise of an Art Form

In the 1950s, photojournalism began to flourish as a powerful form of storytelling. Newspapers and magazines (think, Life, Look and Time), relied on photographers to capture social issues, wars and the humanistic aspects of everyday life. This allowed people, including many women who didn’t have the ability to travel, to gain glimpses into the goings-on in the rest of the world.

During this same time, photography also began to gain recognition as a legitimate art form. Exhibitions in galleries and museums became more common. Some artists began to explore abstraction in photography by playing with elements of light, shadows and composition in their work. Others focused on fashion and portraiture, blending editorial styles with artistic flair.

The Women Who Defined Mid-Century Photography

Photography in the 1950s was a time of rapid growth and accessibility, driven by technological advancements and a shift toward everyday documentation that has evolved into today, everyone insists on a photo shoot with their food before eating it. But before cameras were literally in our pockets, there were pioneering women who used photography as a way to unpack the world around them. 

Despite gender barriers, these women fought to establish themselves as leaders in the field. Let’s take a look at a few key female photographers from the time period of my vintage Beacon II camera.

Diane Arbus (1923–1971)

Diane Arbus is perhaps one of the most well-known and groundbreaking photographers of the 1950s, although I must admit I didn’t know much about her beyond a vague recognition of the name. In the ‘50s, she worked as a fashion photographer for magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, but it was her later work in the ‘60s that truly defined her legacy. 

Arbus is best known for deeply personal, raw and often controversial photographs of marginalized people, from people with disabilities to female impersonators (early drag queens) to circus performers and other social outsiders. She is credited with revolutionizing portrait photography, making it more intimate.

Why She Matters: Arbus pushed social boundaries by featuring people who were typically excluded from the mainstream. Her work helped to shift the conversation on the role of a photographer and the ethics of photographing unconventional or even vulnerable subjects.

Margaret Bourke-White (1904–1971)

Margaret Bourke-White was one of the first female photojournalists to achieve international fame. In the 1950s, she was the first female photographer at Life magazine, which is pretty cool. Her work, which featured life in industrial America, war-torn Europe and India during its 1947 partition cemented her legacy as a pioneer of photojournalist.

Why She Matters: Bourke-White set a new standard in photojournalism, especially for female photographers. Her striking images of social issues, life in rural America, war and the industrial complex were not just revolutionary but also showed that women could thrive in fields that had been dominated by men.

Helen Levitt (1913–2009)

Helen Levitt was a documentary photographer best known for capturing street scenes in New York City, particularly in the ‘40s and ‘50s. She focused on children at play and capturing the vibrancy of urban life at the time. Levitt’s photographs, often black-and-white, show candid moments of everyday life, capturing both the joy and the hardship.

Why She Matters: Levitt’s street photography was about capturing fleeting moments of everyday life, not staging intricate scenes or intimate portraits. She was part of a group of photographers, including Diane Arbus, who helped redefine what photography could be in terms of raw, unposed moments.

Vivian Maier (1926–2009)

Like many artists, Vivian Maier wasn’t widely recognized during her lifetime; her collection of street photography came to light only after her death. Maier worked as a nanny for most of her life, yet with her camera, she captured poignant moments of people on the streets of Chicago and New York in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Her work often focused on the working class and led to an impactful archive of mid-century urban life.

Why She Matters: Maier is significant not just for her artistic eye but also because she was completely self taught. That she could so perfectly capture such fleeting moments with such depth and empathy demonstrates the power of street photography.

Louise Dahl-Wolfe (1895–1989)

Louise Dahl-Wolfe was a pioneer who helped define mid-20th-century fashion photography. While at Harper’s Bazaar in the ‘40s and ‘50s, she was recognized for her use of natural light and outdoor settings, distinguishing her from her peers who often relied on studios. Her photographs convey movement and liveliness, and she was known for putting her models at ease and achieving more natural expressions.

Why She Matters: Dahl-Wolfe’s work in fashion photography was crucial in helping the genre shift from overly staged, highly artificial studio shots to more natural, candid ones that reflected the dynamic nature of the fashion world.

Breaking Barriers and Redefining the World of Photography

These women and their peers were trailblazers, and their work continues to influence photographers today. They challenged the conventional norms of what a photographer should be and do, redefining everything from street photography to photojournalism to fashion.

In an era when photography (and pretty much everything else) was dominated by men, these visionary women proved that photography was a powerful medium for expression and art that reflected and shaped the world in profound ways.

And this is what I love about collecting antique and vintage items. The vintage camera that sparked this article, which for years has sat atop the vintage Telefunken in my front living room looking cool, led me down a path of discovery that I never expected.

When I discussed the idea for this article with a friend, she pointed out that it’s pretty meta: today in 2024, I’m using a feminist lens to look at a vintage camera and discover a set of women who themselves used cameras to look at the world around them through their own lenses of feminism, social justice and art. And that’s pretty cool.