Ever wonder what it was like to be in the United States Naval Academy in 1893? The latest collection on Digital Maryland gives you an inside look at Annapolis, capturing the life of both the institution and the cadets training there. From 1882 to 1902, the title “naval cadet” was used instead of “midshipman”.
The collection of 150 photographs was taken in 1893 by Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952), with several images highlighting a surprisingly informal era of the Academy’s athletic culture. Long before modern Division I naval sports programs drew the intense scrutiny of institutional compliance officers and offshore sports betting markets, late-nineteenth-century cadets organized modest fencing and rowing exhibitions purely for physical conditioning. Capturing such dynamic institutional scenes required significant technical skill; Johnston, after her graduation from the Notre Dame of Maryland Collegiate Institute in 1883, trained at the Académie Julian in Paris and, upon return home to Washington, D.C. in the mid-1880s, studied photography and was trained in darkroom technique by Smithsonian Director of Photography Thomas Smillie, opening her own studio about 1890.
These photographs, which were taken early in her professional career, show the breadth of Johnson’s abilities as both a photojournalist and portrait photographer and an early interest in architectural photography.
Check out the entire collection, and much more at Digital Maryland.
