Kate Matthews

Kate Seston Matthews (August 13, 1870 - July 5, 1956) was an American photographer who depicted tableaux vivants and scenes of everyday life in her community of Pewee Valley, Kentucky, at the turn of the 20th century.

[1] After a childhood illness weakened one of her eyes and left her very frail, Lucien G. and Charlotta Anne Clark Matthews arranged for their youngest daughter to be educated at home while her seven siblings attended school.

Sometime between 1880 and 1895, the Matthews family moved to Oldham County, Kentucky, where they eventually bought a fourteen-room Victorian house and roughly twelve acres on Ashwood Avenue in Pewee Valley.

Despite numerous technological advancements in photography over the next several decades, Matthews used that big bellows-style camera with glass plate negatives, black hood, and tripod for the rest of her life.

In an era when few women ventured into photography, Matthews won prizes at the Kentucky State Fair, in contests in Chicago, Columbus, and Pittsburgh, and in other regional and national competitions.

Her photos also ran in The Youth's Companion, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Ladies' Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Illustrated American, The Forward, The Brown Book of Boston and Burr McIntosh Monthly.

Unfortunately her papers and most of her prints and negatives were lost in a fire shortly after her death, but she is known to have corresponded with editors of a number of photography journals and to have sought guidance from recognized leaders in the field, including Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen.