Physically Defective Children

Jessie Tarbox Beals was an American photographer and photojournalist active from the 1890s through the 1930s. A pioneering figure in early documentary photography, she worked extensively in portraiture and urban reportage, capturing street life and social conditions with a direct, observational approach. Beals was among the first women to work as a professional news photographer in the United States, establishing herself during an era when the medium was male-dominated. Her archive documents the visual culture of the turn-of-the-century American city.