November 20, 2007

From Aimee Crochet of West Fork, Ar....

There is an article on Mrs. Young in “Flashback” (published by the Washington County Historical Society), Volume 52, Winter of 2002, Number 1. Briefly, it says that she was a photographer with a studio on the 2nd floor… She came to Fayetteville in 1877 with her husband who was a traveling “dental surgeon” and when he moved on she stayed… She received a divorce in 1883 and stayed in Fayetteville to raise her son… The article speculates that he was born in 1877… She and the Dr. were from Illinois originally… In 1880 she was residing with a local jeweler and his wife (relatives, friends, or maybe she was just a boarder)… She bought a lot in 1881 and had large home built on it in 1897… She purchased the lot on the town square in 1884 and constructed a wooden building on it that she used for a studio… In 1887 she built the building shown in your photo on the lot (the wooden building had been torn down) and she opened her studio on the 2nd floor as soon as that floor was finished… When the 1st floor was completed (she apparently had the 2nd finished first) a grocer moved in… In 1888 a bank moved into the 1st floor area replacing the grocer… Her income from the photography business and the rent of the lower floor of her building allowed her to build the fine home on the lot she had purchased in 1881… At this point she retired having rented her studio to another photographer, C.E. Watton… The article says that Mrs. Young was a rarity as a woman photographer.. It says “According to the Arkansas Gazette and Business Directory, Mrs. Young was one of the only two female photographers in Arkansas in 1888”… Perhaps her listing appears is in the Gazette of that year..???