I’ve long admired the work of Christina Broom, one of the UK’s earliest female press photographers. Broom came to photography in her forties, and the remarkable body of work she produced from 1903-1939 provides a vital social record of this era. Her photographs regularly appeared in publications including The Tatler, The Sphere, and The Illustrated London News, and were self-published as picture postcards during the height of this industry.
Christina Broom, photographed by her daughter and only assistant Winifred Broom, showing a stall with examples of her work at the Womens War Work Exhibition, London, May 1916. Collection: Museum of London
It has been especially wonderful to see Broom’s work reach a wider audience recently due to the Museum of London’s important acquisition of around 2,500 of her images. The many documentary subjects Broom’s photojournalism covered included the suffrage movement and its most prominent members. To coincide with new National Portrait Gallery display Suffragettes: Deeds not Words, this week I produced a new slideshow presenting highlights from the work of Christina Broom in the Gallery’s collection. The slideshow can be viewed here, and I recommend keeping an eye on the Museum of London’s future plans for a retrospective of Broom’s work, currently scheduled for autumn 2015.
