The archive of one of America's earliest news photo agencies, the George Grantham Bain Collection (100,000 photographic prints and negatives, ca. 1910-22), provides evidence of the many ways in which women made the news in the early decades of the twentieth century. The collection includes photographs of:

• women's suffrage activities
• immigrant women
• women engaging in various sports and physical education activities
• recreational activities of upper-class women
• striking women workers in the pre-World War I era
• women workers during World War I.

Although Bain collected images from publications across the United States that subscribed to his photo service, a large proportion of the photographs were produced under his direction and focus primarily on activities in New York City and, to a lesser extent, the East Coast.

Searching the Collection

The negatives and a portion of the prints can be searched in the online catalog, where the collection has its own listing.

To look for images for which no online records exists, on-site researchers can:

• consult the Groups of Images category in the online catalog (the prints have been grouped by subject into LOTs); submit a call slip to have desired LOTs retrieved
• consult the Biographical File, where many of the portraits in the collection have been filed.