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Margaret Sutermeister

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Margaret Sutermeister
self–portrait, 1895, Albumen silver print
Born(1875-04-10)April 10, 1875
Milton, Massachusetts
DiedMay 30, 1950(1950-05-30) (aged 75)
Milton, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
Known forPhotography

Margaret Sutermeister (1875–1950) was an American photographer active in Massachusetts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Biography

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Margaret "Daisy" Sutermeister was born in 1875 in Milton, Massachusetts, to Emmanuel Sutermeister and Harriet Georgianna Davenport. Her father, who was of Swiss descent, ran a commercial plant nursery and vegetable garden and was also a fireman.[1][2] Her brother was chemist Edwin Sutermeister. She lived for most of her life in the Capen-Davenport-Sutermeister House on Canton Avenue, which had been built in 1781 and was located on the same property as the family nursery.[1][3]

After leaving school in 1894, Sutermeister took up photography using a glass plate camera to document everyday life in Milton and the surrounding area.[3] Over the next 15 years, she shot a wide range of subjects: romantic landscapes, lively street scenes, scientific experiments, and portraits both formal and candid.[3] Among the people she photographed are middle-class whites, African Americans, Gypsy vendors, farmhands, and Asian laundrymen.[2][3][4]

When her father died in 1909, she took over managing the family's Davenport Nursery and gave up photography.[3]

She died in 1951, and a year later the new owners of her house discovered her 1800 glass-plate negatives in a barn. They donated this archive of turn-of-the-century Massachusetts life to the Milton Historical Society. It was published in the early 1990s by art historian Judith Bookbinder and has formed the basis of a number of exhibitions since.[5]

Ten of Sutermeister's photographs are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b Sammarco, Anthony Mitchell, and Paul Buchanan. Milton Architecture. Arcadia Publishing, 2000, p. 40.
  2. ^ a b Doherty, Brian A. Milton Firefighting. Arcadia Publishing, 2007, p. 62.
  3. ^ a b c d e "New display of historical maps and Sutermeister photos at Milton Library". My Town Matters, Sept. 3, 2013.
  4. ^ Price, Michael, and Anthony Mitchell Sammarco. Boston's Immigrants 1840–1925. Arcadia Publishing, 2000, p. 88.
  5. ^ Bookbinder, Judith. Margaret Sutermeister: Chronicling Seen and Unseen Worlds 1894–1909. The Milton Historical Society, Milton, 1993.
  6. ^ "CAP Search Results / Related to Margaret 'Daisy' Sutermeister" National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution website.