ENCAMPMENT, WYOMING, USA, February 2, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — A recently released photography book, “Encampment, Wyoming: Selections from the Lora Webb Nichols Archive 1899-1948”, features 115 photographs created and collected by a homesteader/photographer in the early 20th century. Lora Webb Nichols was an entrepreneur who used photography to provide financial stability for herself and her family for several decades in rural Wyoming before, during and after the Great Depression. Culled from over 24,000 photographs, the selected images in the book provide a dynamic visual window into the American West from a female perspective and highlight the social, domestic, and economic aspects of the Wyoming frontier.
Nichols received her first camera in 1899 at the age of 16, coinciding with the rise of the region’s copper mining boom. As early as 1906, Nichols was working for hire as a photographer for industrial documentation and family portraits, developing and printing from a darkroom she fashioned in the home she shared with her husband and their children. After the collapse of the copper industry, Nichols remained in Encampment and established the Rocky Mountain Studio, a photography and photofinishing service. Her commercial studio was a focal point of the town throughout the 1920s and 1930s.