The only surviving child of wealthy and well-connected parents who became established in Washington, D.C., Frances Benjamin Johnston was born in Grafton, West Virginia.

[2] Her mother, Frances Antoinette Benjamin, was from Rochester, New York, and could trace her ancestry to Revolutionary War patriot Isaac Clark.

She gained further practical experience in her craft by working for the newly formed Eastman Kodak company in Washington, D.C., forwarding film for development and advising customers when cameras needed repairs.

[2] She took portraits of many famous contemporaries, including suffragette Susan B. Anthony, writer Mark Twain and Booker T. Washington, principal of the Tuskegee Institute.

"[14] She photographed Admiral Dewey on the deck of the USS Olympia,[15] the children of President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt playing with their pet pony at the White House, and the gardens of Edith Wharton's famous villa near Paris.

[citation needed] Having grown up in a family that traveled in elite circles of the capital, Johnston built on her connections and familiarity with the Washington political scene: she was appointed as official White House photographer for the Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley,[16] "TR" Roosevelt, and Taft presidential administrations.

In 1897 the Ladies' Home Journal published Johnston's article "What a Woman Can Do With a Camera", describing how to achieve artistic and financial success in photography as a profession.

[16] With her partner, Mattie Edwards Hewitt, a successful freelance home and garden photographer in her own right, Johnston opened a studio in New York City in 1913.

As New York changed under pressure of development, she wanted to document buildings and gardens that were falling into disrepair or were about to be redeveloped and lost.

[27] Johnston was interested in preserving the everyday history of the American South through her art; she accomplished this by photographing barns, inns, and other ordinary structures.

She was not interested in photographing the grand homes and plantations of the South, but rather the quickly deteriorating structures in these communities that portrayed the daily life of common southerners.

The exhibition was entitled Pictorial Survey—Old Fredericksburg, Virginia—Old Falmouth and Nearby Places and described as "A Series of Photographic Studies of the Architecture of the Region Dating by Tradition from Colonial Times to Circa 1830", and as "An Historical Record and to Preserve Something of the Atmosphere of An Old Virginia Town.

"[citation needed] As a result of this exhibit, the University of Virginia hired her to document its buildings, and the state of North Carolina commissioned her to record its architectural history.