Laura Adams Armer (January 12, 1874March 16, 1963) was an American artist and writer. In 1932, her novel '' Waterless Mountain'' won the

Newbery Medal The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...

. She was also an early photographer in the

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

Bay Area. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website ().

Biography

Laura May Adams was born in

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

, and relocated with her family to San Francisco before 1880. Her father was a carpenter and her mother a dressmaker. In 1893 she began her art studies at the California School of Design in the Mark Hopkins Institute and left in 1899 to open her own photographic studio in the Flood Building. She achieved rapid success as a portrait photographer, published her theories on composing studies for the camera, and exhibited with great acclaim at the San Francisco Sketch Club (1900); California State Fair (1901–02); New York Camera Club (1901); Photographic Salons of San Francisco (1901-Second Prize; 1902–03); Starr King Fraternity in Oakland (1902); and San Francisco Art Association (1903). In February 1902 she sold her studio to

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

photographer Adelaide Hanscom and traveled in the Southwest with her fiancé Sidney Armer. The couple married that July and in 1903 moved to Berkeley for the birth of their son, Austin. The pace of her exhibitions accelerated with a display at the Oakland Art Fund of her bookplate designs and prints, which

Anne Brigman Anne Wardrope Brigman (née Nott; December 3, 1869 – February 8, 1950) was an American photography, photographer and one of the original members of the Photo-Secession movement in America. Her most famous images were taken between 1900 and 192 ...

called "exquisite", and contributions to the American Photographic Salons in New York City and Washington, D.C. She returned from a trip to

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

in October 1905 and shortly thereafter her infant daughter died. She emerged from a short retirement in late 1906 and became an active exhibiting member of the Berkeley art colony. She also exhibited on the

Monterey Peninsula The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, California, Monterey, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, California, P ...

and vacationed in

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with Anne Brigman. Laura won a silver medal at Seattle's

Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition The Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition, acronym AYP or AYPE, was a world's fair held in Seattle in 1909 publicizing the development of the Pacific Northwest. It was originally planned for 1907 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Klondike Gold ...

in 1909 and began to experiment with color photography in her popular Berkeley studio. A turning point in her career came in 1919–20 when she began to document systematically the

Hopi The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado ...

and

Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...

of the Southwest, which resulted in numerous publications on their societies, art (especially sand paintings), and folklore, as well as hundreds of photographs and the film '' The Mountain Chant'' (1928). Armer's children's book '' Waterless Mountain'' tells the story of a Navajo boy called Younger Brother and was illustrated by both Armer and her husband. The book won the

in 1932. Another of her children's books, '' The Forest Pool,'' was named a

Caldecott Honor Book The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service ...

in 1939. Armer died in Sacramento on March 16, 1963, at the age of 89.

Exhibitions

Armer's photographs of

San Francisco's Chinatown The Chinatown (), centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four notabl ...

(c. 1900) are in the collection of the

California Historical Society The California Historical Society (CHS) was the official historical society of California, until it dissolved and transferred its collections to the Stanford University Libraries in an agreement that was announced in January 2025. Founded in 1871 ...

of San Francisco. Her photos of the American Southwest are in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley, and the

Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian is a museum devoted to Native American arts. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from Boston, and Hastiin Klah, a Navajo singer and medi ...

, Santa Fe, New Mexico.Peter Palmquist, "Laura May (Adams) Armer (active 1899-1930's)"
in ''100 Years of California Photography by Women: 1850–1950''. Retrieved March 22, 2013.

Published works

* * * * * * *

References

External links

*

a 1900 essay by Armer, hosted by the Women in Photography Archive at

Purdue University Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...

.
Newbery Winner 1932
''The Newbery Companion''. Retrieved July 6, 2006.

article in Women Out West: Art on the Edge of America {{DEFAULTSORT:Armer, Laura Adams 1874 births 1963 deaths American children's writers American women children's writers American women film producers American women photographers Artists from Sacramento, California Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Film producers from California History of the San Francisco Bay Area Newbery Medal winners Photographers from California Writers from Sacramento, California Writers from San Francisco