It Happened in Montana by Crutchfield James A.;

Author:Crutchfield, James A.; [Crutchfield, James A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Lady” Cameron

Montana Photographer

1889

Photography was probably the last thing on Evelyn Cameron’s mind when she and her husband, Ewen, left England in 1889. The newlyweds were headed for eastern Montana, a remote and desolate country that was already home to a small number of upper-class Britons who were raising ponies on the open range. It was a time of new beginnings, and Evelyn and Ewen were anxious to make their own mark on America’s newest state.

The couple settled near Terry, a tiny village that had only a saloon, an engine tank, and a store, according to Evelyn. Curious neighbors called her “Lady” Cameron, no doubt because of her crisp British accent and regal bearing.

The Camerons were both from upper-class British families, and consequently they liked well-bred horses. They hoped to make their fortune from the rich grasslands of eastern Montana by raising polo ponies for export back to England. The venture ended in disaster when many of their ponies died of pneumonia while crossing the Atlantic. Those that survived were considered too wild for polo. The Camerons were financially devastated.

During the lean times that followed, Evelyn may have pondered her reasons for coming to the United States. She had been financially comfortable in England. Her half brother was Lord Battersea, a member of Prime Minister Gladstone’s cabinet, and she herself had been socially prominent. But that was not enough for Evelyn and Ewen, a Scottish naturalist. They had read and heard so much about the great American West that they simply had to see it for themselves.

After the pony debacle Ewen devoted himself mostly to studying Montana birds. Evelyn threw herself into managing their frontier household. In 1894, perhaps influenced by a wealthy Irish boarder, Evelyn had ordered a camera through the mail and had become interested in photography. During the next several years, with no formal training, she became highly skilled at the art. It became her second love after her husband. And it became a way of supplementing their meager income.

Evelyn photographed everything and anything. She took pictures of wildlife to illustrate articles her husband had published in The Auk, the official journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union. She was equally at ease photographing the daily activities of local residents, including cowboys, sheepherders, trappers, homesteaders, and railroad workers. She also chronicled her own life on the rugged frontier.

Ewen Cameron died of cancer in 1915, leaving Evelyn to run their small ranch alone. Her household chores never detracted from her zest for photography. For the next thirteen years, until her own death in 1928, she continued to be a common sight in and around Terry, although her outstanding contribution wasn’t truly appreciated in her own lifetime.

Evelyn had willed all of her belongings to a close friend and neighbor, Janet Williams. These included her photography equipment and supplies, photographic plates and prints, and personal diaries, which sat in Williams’s basement until 1979. Then a writer researching frontier women discovered them and included some of them in a book, Photographing Montana 1894–1928: The World of Evelyn Cameron.

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