Pauline Kruger Hamilton on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Pauline Kruger Hamilton (1870 – July 8, 1918)
was an American photographer who served as royal court photographer in Vienna, Austria.
She returned to the United States in 1915 to advocate for support for the widows and orphans of World War I.
Her photo of a child in Austria was used for the 1919
Biography
Her first husband, Frank Hamilton, killed a man in a quarrel and died of tuberculosis soon after being released from prison. After his death, she moved to Vienna to study painting, took up photography and became friends with Archduke Friedrich. For five years, thanks to the patronage of Franz Joseph I, she served as the official royal court photographer. She was a friend of feminist activist May Wright Sewall and corresponded with her from Germany.
She returned to the United States in 1915 to advocate for support for the widows and orphans of World War I.
Her photo of a child in Austria was used for the 1919 American Red Cross
The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desi ...
annual campaign and membership drive.
Later in her life she was suspected of being a spy, followed by federal agents, and died before charges could be proved. Suspicious that she might be attempting to fake her own death, the Department of Justice sent officials to her funeral who verified that hers was the body in the coffin.
References
1870 births 1918 deaths 19th-century American photographers People from Middleton, Wisconsin American portrait photographers 19th-century American women photographers {{US-photographer-stub