Elizabeth Williams (photographer)

Elizabeth "Tex" Williams (born 1924) is an American photographer. She joined the Women's Army Corps in 1944 at the age of 20 as one of the few African-American women photographers in the military.[1]

Elizabeth "Tex" Williams
Born1924
Houston, Texas
NationalityAmerican
EducationFort Monmouth, New Jersey, Photo School
Known forPhotography
MovementWomen's Army Corps, Photography

Life and education

Williams was born in Houston in 1924,[2] where she was raised in a working-class family.[1] She served in the Women's Army Corps, where she was stationed in Iowa and Arizona. She later retired to Huachuca City, Arizona.[3]

Williams was educated at Photographic Division School in New Jersey with honors and graduated as valedictorian[3] because the army did not allow African Americans in the military's school for photography.[4]

Career

Williams worked in the Women's Army Corps as a photographer[1] from 1944 to 1970.[4] She was stationed at the all-black base in Iowa because the military was still segregated, a practice that endured even after the military's 1948 ending of segregation.[1] Since the military was segregated until the Executive Order 9981,[4] she had taken many photos of African Americans.[3] Within and outside of the military, Williams photographed the "New Negro" that changed the stereotypical narrative of African Africans.[2]

Williams photographed all things military. She took intelligence photos, medicine, defense, and ID pictures.[3] She later worked as an intelligence photographer for defense intelligence agencies.[3]

Significance

Scholars such as Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe and Jacqueline Ellis describe Williams as a pioneer, whose race and gender made professional success as a photographer unlikely, let alone in the American military, which would remain segregated in practice until the 1980s, though the official policy ended in 1948.[1][3] African Americans were barred from army photography schools and training programs, so she had to go to Photographic Division School in New Jersey, where she was the first woman and African American to graduate from there, which she did with honors.[1][3] She was the only women to photograph the Air Force.[5]

References
  1. Ellis, Jacqueline (1998). Silent witnesses : representations of working-class women in the United States. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press. ISBN 9780879727444. OCLC 36589970.
  2. Finkelman, Paul (2009). Encyclopedia of African American history, 1896 to the present : from the age of segregation to the twenty-first century. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195167795. OCLC 239240886.
  3. Moutoussamy-Ashe, Jeanne (1993). Viewfinders : black women photographers. New York: Writers & Readers Pub. pp. 54–55, 98–100. ISBN 9780863161599. OCLC 29733207.
  4. Winegarten, Ruthe; Sharon Kahn (1997). Brave Black women : from slavery to the space shuttle (1st ed.). Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9780292791077. OCLC 35325273.
  5. Calvin, Paula E.; Deborah A. Deacon (2011). American women artists in wartime, 1776–2010. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. ISBN 9780786449873. OCLC 707825583.
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