Mabel Cox Surdam (born October 23, 1879 — died after 1940) was an American portrait photographer based at various times in

Binghamton, New York Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, and

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

Early life

Mabel E. Cox was from

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...

, the daughter of David Austin Cox and Lettie Austin Rome Cox. Her father worked for the railroad.Albert Oren Cummins
''Cummings Genealogy''
(Argus and Patriot Printing House 1904): 120-121.

Career

In 1910, Mabel Cox Surdam hosted a meeting of the Photographers' Association of Binghamton, in her home in that city. She worked as a receptionist and portrait photographer in Toronto, for the T. Eaton Company."Our Cover Portrait and the Hall of Fame"
''Portrait'' (August 1919): cover. After eight years in Toronto, she worked at the Breckon studio in Pittsburgh, beginning in 1921, and was active in that city's photography groups too. She spoke at a meeting of the Professional Photographers Society of New York in 1918, and the Professional Photographers of Pennsylvania in 1923. In 1911 and 1912, Surdam was elected second vice-president of the Women's Federation of the Photographers' Association of America, in the Federation's leadership with

Maybelle Goodlander Maybelle D. Goodlander (May 25, 1882 – October 25, 1959) was an American commercial and portrait photographer based in Muncie, Indiana, in partnership with her older sister Maude Goodlander. Early life Maude and Maybelle Goodlander were born i ...

and

Pearl Grace Loehr Pearl Grace Loehr (born September 29, 1882) was an American photographer and arts educator based in New York. Born in Warsaw, Indiana, the daughter of Mrs. Elizabeth Loehr, she was interested in art from the time she was a child. She apprenticed w ...

. She had seven works in a traveling exhibit organized by the Photographers' Association of America in 1916. She spoke to the convention on the topic "Personality in Business" in 1919. 1922 she was named third vice-president of the Association. "There is never a convention at which she is not present, either as a speaker or spectator," noted one profile of Surdam in 1919.

Personal life

Mabel Cox married fellow photographer Sherman Evarts Surdam in 1898. Her husband was head of the photographic department at

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

, taught photography at

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...

, and was president of the Professional Photographers Society of New York in 1940-1941."Heads State Photographers" ''New York Times'' (May 2, 1941): 15. via

ProQuest ProQuest LLC is an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based global information-content and technology company, founded in 1938 as University Microfilms by Eugene B. Power. ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for libraries, provid ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Surdam, Mabel Cox 1879 births People from Scranton, Pennsylvania American photographers Year of death missing