This month I would like to introduce you to two women who had a long career as photographers. Many Georgia photographers chose to work with their siblings, including brothers and their sisters, and women and their sisters. But overall, in the business of photography in Atlanta, few had as lengthy a career as The Misses Mead — Adelaide and Lotta.

I am not yet positive where the Mead sisters studied to become proficient in operating a photo studio or in taking, processing, and retouching photographs. In later interviews, the sisters made no mention of studying in Atlanta, but New York is mentioned more than once, and since they lived there for several years, a return to study there is not out of the question. Something else I have yet to explore is that there were several photographers in New York by the surname Mead, and there may be a genealogical link there.

Adelaide “Addie” Charlotte Mead was born in Walton, New York, about July 1862, and she appears at age three on the 1865 Walton, New York census living with her grandparents Mead, her grandmother’s two older children, her mother Fannie [Frances Isabella Ells (or Eells) Mead], and her soldier father, Henry A. Mead, later a druggist.

By 1870, the family was living in Amherst, Virginia, where Fannie’s father Samuel Eells, died in July 1873 (but buried in Walton, NY), and Lotta was born there the following October. By 1874, the little family had moved to Catskill, New York where brother William C., was born in March 1874, and all of them, plus Fannie’s mother, appear there on the 1880 federal census.

Why they chose to move to Atlanta, Georgia, by 1895, I do not know, but the Mead sisters’ father Henry A., and brother, William C., appear in the 1895 Atlanta city directory. Henry A. Mead died in Atlanta, September 7, 1896, and as a former Union soldier was buried at the Marietta National Cemetery.

Both Adelaide and Lotta begin to appear in the Atlanta city directory in 1898, working as cashiers at the Aragon Hotel, where their brother William worked as a clerk. They remained employed at the Hotel through 1899.

Things changed in 1900. Addie and Lotta appear as photographers on every Atlanta, Fulton County federal census from 1900 through 1940, a long career for any photographer. While they had stand-alone photography studios, they advertised regularly, even beyond Atlanta in 1902, but also in 1905, in Jacksonville, Dalton, and Cartersville, Georgia newspapers. They took over Mrs. Bessie M. Averitt’s Whitehall Street studio by 1901, and while advertising in other cities, they were still located at 36 1/2 Whitehall (a street where several prominent photography studios were located), and they remained at that location through 1909.

In an early year on Whitehall Street, in May 1901, a fire started in their studio which “completely demolished” their photography studio. Other businesses at 36 Whitehall were also damaged. An article about the fire in the Atlanta Journal (May 31, 1901, pg.3, col. 4), reported that the Misses Mead suffered a “loss of $1,000, only partially covered by insurance” and they had only recently donated to help those photographers burned out in Jacksonville, Florida.

The fire certainly did not stop the Mead sisters continuing at that spot for the next eight years. They photographed children, for which they “had wonderful success,” as reported in a text advertisement entitled “Mead’s Studio” (Atlanta Constitution March 16, 1902, pg.29 col.5), but they also made many studio portraits of adults, “the most beautiful pictures….of the leading people in Atlanta have been produced at the Mead Studio…” (“Artistic Photography, the Excellent Work Being Done by the Mead Studio,” in the Atlanta Constitution, June 14, 1903 pg.5).

By 1910, the Misses Mead were located at 170 1/2 Peachtree St., where they stayed for the next four years, calling the business “The Mead Studio, Owned and Operated by Misses Mead.” In 1915, they were working out of their home at 56 E. Ellis St., and by that time they titled their business “The Misses Mead Home Portraiture.” They worked out of their home the remainder of their careers. By 1922, they had moved to 75 Wabash Ave., and in 1928 they were living and working at 523 Wabash Ave., where they lived out the rest of their lives.

Although at times Addie, and sometimes Lotta, was listed alone as a photographer in the directories, both were quite active in the business, with Lotta sometimes doing the retouching. Adelaide, the elder sister by about fifteen years, was in the news at least once without Lotta. Adelaide’s Persian cat, Dixie, made the news, along with his photographs (“Atlanta’s Canine Aristocracy,” Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 17, 1911 pg.4 sect. G).

In the article “Atlanta Women Win Success in Business,” (Atlanta Journal June 15, 1913, pg. 39), Adelaide is depicted photographing a gentleman in the sisters’ studio, but in the article text, under “Women as Photographers,” both Miss Adelaide Mead and Miss Lotta Mead, are “ranked among Atlanta’s leading photographers for fifteen years…” It is Adelaide who is depicted in the studio, but it is Lotta who tells the author that “Children and other women very often seek our studio in preference to that of a man’s,” and that “….patience….has helped us time and again to take pictures of children which other photographers have failed to get.” It is this 1913 article that first mentions their education, “They once studied art in New York,” which helped them as photographers. By about 1913, the Mead sisters were also photographing home exteriors.

In July 1904, the Misses Mead sisters were on the “reception committee,” along with several other Atlanta photographers and/or their wives, for the July meeting of the Southern Tri-States Photograph Association, meeting in Atlanta. Georgia photographers were both president (William M. Stephenson, Atlanta) and vice-president (M. Edward Wilson, Savannah) of the 1904 Tri-States.

When the national photographers’ group, the Photographers Association of America (PAA) met in Atlanta in June 1914, “The Misses Mead of Atlanta, specialists in home portraiture, will have charge of of the reception committee for the women visitors.” (Atlanta Journal, June 12, 1914 pg.2, col.3). A few months prior to that meeting, the Misses Mead were able to make a photograph of the PAA’s Executive Board.

By spring 1915, the Misses Mead (Misses Mead Home Portraiture, 56 E. Ellis St.) were members of the Atlanta Photographer’s Association, whose advertisement ran from March to May 1915, stated that “A membership in this association is proof positive of an ability to produce photographic art.”

In the July 1915 national convention of the PPA in Indianapolis, the Misses Mead were honored with the exhibit of two of their photographs, and one of those, of only twenty total, was put into their “salon of honor,” the highest honor bestowed. The sisters were also members of the Woman’s Federation of Photographers, affiliated with the PAA (Atlanta Constitution, August 1, 1915, pg. 5, col.. 3). According to another report, they were awarded Certificates for being exhibitors in the PAA’s “permanent exhibit.” (Photographic Journal of America, 1915, v.52, pg. 52).

The newspaper cut line for photographs by the Misses Mead is found regularly in Atlanta newspapers at least into the 1930s. In 1938, a full-page article called “Women Who Hold Man-Size Jobs,” authored by Marguerite Steedman, appeared in the Atlanta Journal (Oct. 16, 1938, pg. 80). Along with describing women with a saw shop, violin repair shop, and a lock and key shop, was a piece on the “Two pioneer women photographers in Atlanta” describing the Misses Mead. Lotta tells the author that “We started taking children’s pictures with a small camera, mostly as a hobby.” It soon became a business, and she said “We do all our own developing and printing…” Discussing their early years, Lotta says they used a horse and surrey (buggy) to get to homes to take pictures, and they used “one veteran toy” to please children being photographed, and they were still using it, and “have used [it] for more than a score of years [over 20 years]. It is a small monkey which fits over one’s hand like a glove, which was brought from New York many years ago.”

The Mead sisters were last listed as photographers in the Photographers listing in the Atlanta city directories in 1932 (Adelaide only), but both women were last listed as photographers in the individual lists in 1935, and Lotta alone was last listed as a photographer in 1939.

Preceded by her son William (d. 1921), their mother, Fannie I. Mead, often listed as the Misses Mead’s landlord, passed away on February 25, 1927. The three women had been living at the 523 Wabash Avenue address since 1922, and all three women died while living at that address.

The “well-known Atlanta photographer” (Atlanta Constitution, “Miss Mead Dies at Home,” Aug. 5, 1946, pg. 11), Adelaide Charlotte Mead died on August 9, 1946, age 84, and “a well-known photographer….specialized in photographs of children” (Atlanta Journal, “Miss Lotta Mead Rites to be Held Monday,” Feb. 5, 1950, pg. 58, col. 2), Lotta Webster Mead died on Feb. 4, 1950, at age 77. They, like their mother, were members of the Church of Christ Scientist, and are buried in West View Cemetery, with their brother and mother.

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