Miss Elizabeth Branagan by Gertrude A. Brugman ….. “More New York streets would look like this if Miss Branagan were not constantly on hand to enforce the laws. By tactfully cooperating with the families who live in the buildings, she achieves results which would fill any mere man with appropriate shame.”

I’d never heard of Gertrude A. Brugman.  I stumbled on this page, as so often, while doing something else.  I may be wrong, but don’t recall, for example, that she appeared among the early pioneer photographers recently brought to more prominence by the campaign whose website is at hundredheroines.org.  I’m busy, and I’m doing something else and I’m not supposed to be distracted.  But I can’t resist offering you a page from the New York Tribune of April 22nd, 1917, courtesy of the Library of Congress.  Nobody with access to a computer can be bored, even in COVID-19 days, while there is still online access to the Library of Congress.   I’ve given the captions in full, because they have a certain dated charm of their own.  I hope Gertrude (would she mind if I called her by that name?) wrote them herself, because then we’d have a vision of the complete freelance, sniffing out a good story, getting permissions, locations, pictures and text, and selling the whole package to the paper.  Great work by Gertrude, and I’m glad to meet her.  Continue reading →