Anna Frances Levins

Anna Frances Levins (March 21, 1876 – July 15, 1941) was an Irish American photographer, publisher, author, painter and activist whose works appeared in publications including The New York Times,[1] Vogue[2] and The Boston Globe.

[3] She was lauded as “a pioneer woman photographer and a leader in Irish cultural pursuits.”[4] Her portrait sitters included Pope Pius X,[5] William Henry O’Connell, Eamon de Valera and John McCormack.

[8] Anna Frances and her sisters Clare, Elizabeth (a clerk for the Board of Education), and Julia (a schoolteacher) long lived with their widowed mother Nanno.

[16] She and Sir Thomas had homes in County Wexford and in Dublin, where the Levins Press published her husband's writings on art, history and hunting.

An obituary in The New York Times described her as “long prominent in church and Irish-American circles.”[19] She photographed Catholic leaders including Pope Pius X, Giovanni Bonzano, Diomede Falconio, John Farley, James Gibbons, Patrick Hayes, John Healy, Michael Logue, Daniel Mannix, George Mundelein, William O’Connell, and Edward P. Tivnan.

Among the politicians, judges and activists who posed for her were Daniel F. Cohalan, Michael Collins, William J. Corcoran, Joseph Devlin, John W. Goff, Shane Leslie, Joseph McGarrity, T. P. O’Connor, Kathleen O’Connell, Patrick Pearse, Eugene A. Philbin, John P. Redmond, Grace Strachan, Timothy Daniel Sullivan, and Eamon de Valera.

[7] Newspapers and periodicals that published her photos include the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Catholic Union and Times, Detroit Free Press, Ireland, Irish American, The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society, Moving Picture News, New York Times, Out West, The Spur, Theatre and Vogue.

The Battle Cry of Ireland, Patriotic Poems Collection by Anna Frances Levins (1917), and Reverend John Cavanaugh's Thomas Addis Emmet, M.D.