Frances Carpenter

Frances Aretta Carpenter (April 30, 1890 – November 2, 1972) was an American folklorist, author, and photographer. She traveled to, and published collections of folk stories from, nations on five continents. Early life and education Frances Aretta Carpenter was born in Washington, D.C. in 1890. Her mother was Joanna Condict. Her father was noted traveller and travel-writer Frank G. Carpenter, and her brother John Carpenter. Unusually for the times, her father took her traveling with him internationally as his secretary and photographic assistant from her early teenage years, with a break to complete her college education starting in 1908. In 1912 she graduated from Smith College, and returned to work as her father's assistant. Photography, writing, and a life of world travel From an early age, she photographed ethnographically diverse subjects for her father's books. The pair traveled extensively on four continents, with Frances remaining in active partnership with Frank Carpenter until his death in 1924. In 1930, Carpenter published Tales of a Basque Grandmother, her first collection of folktales. This would also be the first of her popular Grandmother series, where she used the device of a central organizing narrator to convey details of national culture as well as its folk legends. Her breakthrough as a popular writer would come three years later with the publication of Tales of a Russian Grandmother, (1933) "genuine" stories, translated from original Russian sources, and printed with the now classic illustrations by Ivan Bilibin.