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Carol McKinney Highsmith (born Carol Louise McKinney on May 18, 1946) is an American photographer and author. Her work documents the landscapes, architecture, and people of the rural and urban United States in a decades-long nationwide study, in progress since the 1980s. Highsmith has donated her photographs to the Library of Congress since 1992, creating a collection of nearly 100,000 images, all of which are in the public domain.

Key Information

Highsmith began her nationwide photography project after extensively photographing the Willard Hotel in the early 1980s for its restoration, a project that introduced her to the works of pioneering 20th-century photojournalist Frances Benjamin Johnston. Highsmith cites Johnston as a major influence on her works, drawing on Johnston's comprehensive architectural and landscape photography of the 1920s and 1930s and her donation of her life's work to the Library of Congress. Since 2010, Highsmith has toured multiple states per year to create a broad pictorial record of the country in the 21st century, a series that she expects to complete in 2026.

Early life and studies

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Childhood

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External videos
video icon Renowned Photographer Captures America’s National Treasures

Carol Louise McKinney was born to Luther Carlton McKinney II and Ruth Ragsdale Carter in Leaksville, North Carolina, near the large tobacco farm owned by her maternal grandparents, Yancey Ligon Carter and Mary Elizabeth Morton. Her mother's family were planters descending from the Puritan colonist Thomas Carter and owned a plantation near Wentworth, North Carolina.[1] Highsmith's father was a manufacturer's representative, and her mother worked as the editor of Decision magazine, then the world's largest-distribution magazine, at the Minneapolis headquarters of evangelist Billy Graham.[2] She is a first cousin of the journalist Linda Carter Brinson and the late folk artist Benny Carter, as well as a niece of lieutenant colonel J. P. Carter and 15 of his siblings.[3]

In an hour-long interview with C-SPAN founder and host Brian Lamb on July 17, 2011,[2] Highsmith spoke extensively of her childhood in Minneapolis and her summers in the South with her North Carolina "granny" and Atlanta, Georgia "grandmother," who went by that title alone.[2] Carol and her sister Sara spent the first half of each summer on granny's Carolina tobacco farm and the second half as part of the high society with her grandmother in Atlanta. Highsmith said that the latter, Sara Maude Janes McKinney, was a friend of Gone With the Wind author Margaret Mitchell and other society women. "We'd spend every day at someone's pool or country club," Highsmith said. "Opera played on the radio. Grandmother taught us manners and etiquette—to sit up straight, eat with our mouths closed, and hold the soup spoon just so."[2]

According to Highsmith, her rural granny was wealthier than her refined grandmother in Atlanta. "Granny and Granddad's large tobacco spread involved a lot of backbreaking work but was highly successful. Grandmother and grandfather [in Atlanta], had lost everything [including his furniture business] in two fires and the Great Depression. But grandmother's friends made like nothing had happened. They'd have her to dinner, play bridge and canasta, even take her on cruises to Europe and have their chauffeurs drive her as if she were still part of the aristocracy."[2]

Highsmith told C-SPAN that the influence of her father, a traveling salesman of everything from wave pools to motor buses, and her own, mostly backroad travels through several states to reach her grandmothers imbued her with a fascination about America, "especially roadside America. The old car in which my mother would drive (my sister) Sara and me south would break down every year, it seemed, in little towns. We'd have to stay overnight in dingy tourist courts or rented rooms above the kinds of old service stations I love to photograph today."[2]

Highsmith has cited her childhood experiences in rural Rockingham County as an enduring memory and influence.[4]

In 1964, Carol Highsmith (then McKinney) graduated from Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis.[5]

College, first marriage, and career

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Following her years at the academy, Highsmith studied, or as she puts it, "just as often partied," for a year at the now-defunct Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa.

At Parsons, Carol McKinney met Mark Highsmith, an artist from Queens, New York, who soon graduated and enlisted in the Army. The couple married in Minneapolis, then moved to Columbus, Georgia, where Mark Highsmith was stationed at Fort Benning. Upon his deployment to Vietnam in 1966, Carol Highsmith moved to Queens, New York, after securing a position at Peters Griffin Woodward, a national radio "rep" firm in Manhattan. As an assistant traffic manager at its Park Avenue offices, she logged advertisements for radio stations across the country. It was Highsmith's introduction to her first career in the broadcasting business.[6]

First marriage and career

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When Mark Highsmith returned from Vietnam in 1967, he was assigned to Fort Bragg, and the couple briefly moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina. Shortly thereafter, Mark Highsmith was discharged from the Army, and the Highsmiths relocated to Philadelphia, where Marc enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and rented art-studio space downtown. Carol worked at WPHL-TV, the home of "Summertime at the Pier," a teenage dance show hosted by Philadelphia disc jockey Ed Hurst on Atlantic City's Steel Pier in nearby New Jersey.

Highsmith wrote promotional copy and produced shows. One of her jobs was to assist Bill "Wee Willie" Webber on his children's show, the Wee Willie Webber Colorful Cartoon Club. Highsmith was pictured in a Philadelphia Inquirer advertisement for the station, strumming a guitar. "Take Over a TV Station (for 50 seconds)," the ad copy read. "TV 17 doesn't care who you are. How old you are. Or how you think. As long as you or your group can write and sing music.... So if you really care, stop griping. And start writing."

The year 1969 brought a shattering, life-changing event. As Carol was driving to Philadelphia from Atlantic City, the radio station to which she was listening broadcast a devastating news item, that Mark Highsmith, a young, aspiring artist, had committed suicide by gun in his studio.[6] "They actually broadcast such things, with names and all, back then," Carol says. "I pulled over and sobbed and sobbed and somehow made it home to a horrible scene."

Mark had returned from Vietnam with post traumatic stress disorder. Though horrified and faced with an uncertain future at best, Carol resolved to get a college degree and, in her words, "make something of myself." She moved to KYW-TV and began work in broadcast sales. All the while, Westinghouse Broadcasting, KYW's corporate owner, gave Highsmith a foothold in college by paying for her college coursework at the University of Pennsylvania, on nights and weekends.

Early career in broadcasting

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In 1976, Highsmith moved to Washington, D.C., and spent six years as a senior account executive for another market leader, radio station WMAL while taking classes at American University, also paid for by her employer, ABC. She served on boards of directors, including that of the Greater Washington Board of Trade.[7]

In the 1970s, Highsmith broadcast from London and from Oktoberfest in Munich, conducting interviews with Germans.[8]

Early career as photographer and work at the Willard Hotel

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Carol M. Highsmith photograph of model in Willard Hotel

Highsmith worked in sales for the radio station, and in the 1970s, earned a station-paid trip to the Soviet Union, then a closed society. A client gave her a Pentax K1000 camera, the only one she owned.[9] She later extended her trip to the People's Republic of China, where she visited rural villages.[9] The trip fostered Highsmith's interest in documenting places visually.[9]

After returning to the U.S., she took night-school photography classes at the Corcoran School.[9] She was taught at the Corcoran under Frank DiPerna, who assigned each class member to photograph a model in an unusual location in metropolitan Washington. Highsmith chose the crumbling Willard Hotel, once the lavish "Hotel of Presidents" that had been closed since 1968.[10][11] She viewed a collection of 50,000 photographs of the Willard taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston in 1901, during the hotel's glory days.[9] The work of Johnson, a pioneering American woman in photography, were held by the Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division.[9] Johnston's photos of the Beaux-Arts Willard in 1901, when it expanded from 100 to 389 rooms, were the sole source available to artisans during the Willard's grand restoration eight decades later, because no blueprints or artist's drawings had survived.[12][13]

Highsmith's mostly black-and-white photos of the Willard reaffirmed her eye for detail and solidified her interest in photography,[14] especially or decaying buildings.[15][12] Highsmith's experience photographing the Willard inspired her to follow Johnson to document life across the United States,[9][14] including to preserve a historic record.[12] After the Willard was restored as a grand hotel and reopened in 1986, it displayed an extensive exhibit of Highsmith and Johnston's work in an alcove off the "Peacock Alley" corridor.[16] In 2006, the American Institute of Architects held four-month comparative exhibit of Highsmith and Johnston's work called "Two Windows on the Willard"; like another AIA one-person exhibit of Highsmith's work, titled "Structures of our Times: 31 Buildings That Changed Modern Life" in 2002, the "Two Windows" study traveled to several locations across the country.[17]

Photography career, 1980s to present

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Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City

Around 1982, Highsmith quit her job at WMAL radio to pursue her dream of becoming a professional photographer.[18] By 1987, she employed seven assistants at her studio at 13th and G streets NW in Washington, D.C., charging as much as $1,500 for a day of photography.[18]

Highsmith landed a contract to photograph another historic building on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a turreted building called Sears House, then containing the Washington offices of the Sears, Roebuck Co., where Mathew Brady had studios in which he and his assistants photographed Washington luminaries during and after the Civil War. Her work at Sears House would lead to Highsmith's first photographic honor, a 1985 Award of Excellence from Communication Arts magazine.[19]

When Landphair returned to Washington to join the Voice of America in 1986, he and Highsmith reconnected, and they married two years later. Landphair would soon be the principal writer of books featuring Highsmith's work as well as the historian, trip planner, driver, grip, and, as he put it, "Man Friday" on dozens of the couple's photography expeditions throughout the United States.

In 1992, the D.C. Preservation League exhibited Highsmith's cibachrome photos of Washington, D.C.[20]

From 2000 to 2002, a three-year grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation enabled Highsmith to photograph disadvantaged families in 22 cities where the foundation was active.[21]

In her photography of Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego in 2013, Highsmith made the Torrey pine, the endangered tree for which the golf course is named, the focal point.[22] In a 2015 interview, Highsmith said that she considered her documentation of "living history and built environment" to be an "indestructible record of our vast nation, including sites that are fast fading, even disappearing, in the wake of growth, development, and decay."[23]

Highsmith's decades-long project has photographed all 50 states and the District of Columbia.[24] Her work included photographs of Texas State Fair mascot "Big Tex" before he burned in a fire, and photographs of the Lower Manhattan skyline one month before the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.[25]

Highsmith also photographed for, and her publishing company, Chelsea Publishing, Inc., published, six additional books: Forgotten No More, about the Korean War Veterans' Memorial;[26] Union Station: A Decorative History, about Washington's historic train terminal;[27] Reading Terminal and Market: Philadelphia's Gateway and Grand Convention Center;[28] The Mount Washington: A Century of Grandeur; and Houston: Deep in the Heart.

Highsmith and her husband and collaborator Ted Landphair have published more than 35 "photographic tour" and "pictorial souvenir" coffeetable books, with most books focusing on a particular U.S. city, state, and region.[29] Other photography books focus on lighthouses, barns, Amish culture, and the Appalachian Trail.[29] Most are published by Crescent Books, an imprint of Random House in New York; a few others are published by Preservation Press, the publishing arm of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[29] Photographs include ordinary people and everyday sites as well as soaring architecture, natural landscapes, national parks and monuments, Civil War battlefields, and engineering marvels.[30]

Highsmith's first work, Pennsylvania Avenue: America's Main Street, was published by the American Institute of Architects' AIA Press in 1988. In 1998, Random House sent Highsmith and Landphair to Ireland, where they visually represented every county of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, for Ireland: A Photographic Tour, their only book set outside the United States.[31] In early 2002, Crescent Books published World Trade Center: Tribute and Remembrance, about the 2001 September 11 attacks in New York and exclusively featuring Highsmith's photographs, including aerial photographs of the Twin Towers two months before they fell.[32]

That same year, Highsmith and Landphair collaborated on Deep in the Heart, a book about Houston, Texas, financed by that city's International Protocol Alliance. They also produced The Mount Washington: A Century of Grandeur, on the White Mountains resort. And Highsmith collaborated with architectural writer Dixie Legler on Historic Bridges of Maryland, published by that state's department of transportation.[33]

In 2007, Highsmith photographed, and author Ryan Coonerty described, 52 monuments and other public sites in a National Geographic book Etched in Stone.[34]

Alabama, the first state in Highsmith's "This is America" study Alabama became the George F. Landegger Alabama Library of Congress Collection within the Highsmith archive at the national library.[35]

George F. Landegger also donated funds to the Library of Congress to document Washington, D.C. neighborhoods[36] and the state of Connecticut.[37] The Connecticut study, intermingled with Highsmith's examinations of the two states (California and Texas) that followed Alabama. The Connecticut work, completed in 2015, culminated in both an archive of Highsmith images in the Library of Congress collection and a coffee-table book, simply titled Connecticut, published by Chelsea Publishing Inc. the same year.[38]

On two photographic journeys over a six-month period, first in late 2012 and then in early 2013, Highsmith and Landphair worked in California, producing images for The Jon B. Lovelace California Library of Congress Collection.[39]

In 2022, Highsmith published Why Louisiana Ain't Mississippi . . . or Any Place Else!, a name borrowed from a presentation presentations by the state's Commissioner of Administration, Jay Dardenne, a former Louisiana lieutenant governor, who wrote both the book's introduction and an opening poem called "She is Louisiana." As usual in the select series of Highsmith state-specific books, husband Landphair wrote its many captions. The book was underwritten by Louisiana Public Broadcasting, which used it as a companion to a fresh documentary about the state, also featuring Highsmith's photos and Dardenne's stories, and also carrying the "why Louisiana ain't Mississippi" reference in its title.[40]

Highsmith has captured images of federally owned properties, such as U.S. courthouses, federal office buildings, and post offices, for the General Services Administration.[41]

90-year-old Kate Carter in North Carolina log cabin

For the Trust's Preservation Press in 1994, Highsmith and Landphair produced their first national book, America Restored, as well as a book on Washington's foreign embassies.[42] America Restored detailed two restoration projects in each state, including the extensive renovations of the Fordyce Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas; the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco; Rockwood Manor House in Wilmington, Delaware; Georgia's Jekyll Island Historic District; the covered bridges of Rush County, Indiana; Parlange Plantation in Louisiana; Broome County, New York's, carousels; and the Battleship Texas in Houston.[43]

On commission from the National Park Service, Highsmith photographed homes, personal belongings, and collections of four presidents (Lincoln, Eisenhower, Truman, and Theodore Roosevelt) as well as poet Carl Sandburg, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee, African-American businesswoman and teacher Maggie Walker, the pioneer American nurse, Clara Barton, and the Nez Perce American Indian Nation. The Park Service produced a "virtual multi-media exhibit" of Highsmith's presidential collection photographs.[44] In 2016 and 2017, Highsmith was the featured photographer in a Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History exhibit of national park images saluting the National Park Service's 100th anniversary.[45]

Style and reception

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The Jefferson Memorial at dusk

Highsmith usually uses a Phase One IQ4 150-megapixel digital camera.[46] In 2018, photography curator Anne Wilkes Tucker compared Highsmith's work to that of Ansel Adams, saying: “Highsmith's view of America is a positive one. She has an eye for beauty, It's an important view, but not the entire view."[47] Highsmith sometimes documents buildings in various stages of renewal for contractors, architects, and developer: American Photographers magazine commented in 1989 on Highsmith's images: "Shooting enormous spaces in uncertain lighting conditions, her large format images reveal high quality and fine detail, capturing the splendor of the subject matter, be it a building in the midst of destruction or the elegance of a formal room."[48] In a December 2024 interview with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, she stated that she sees her photographs as more akin to historic records than works of art. When asked, "How do you know when you’ve taken a good photograph?" she replied, "Is there a bad photograph, is my question."[49]

Donations to Library of Congress

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Electric City sign in Scranton, Pennsylvania
Old red barn near Muscle Shoals in northern Alabama

Highsmith has donated her catalogue of photographs documenting American life and places to the Library of Congress.[50][51] In 1992, the LOC accepted 500 of Highsmith's photographs as the first installment of her continuing work to document architectural transitions in the nation's capital.[52] By 2017, she had donated about 42,000 photographs to the LOC, with the goal of donating 100,000 images.[53] Beginning in 2002, she began to provide digitally shot scans and photographs to the LOC, allowing for quicker access online.[50] By early 2021, the LOC Prints and Photographs Division held close to 100,000 photographs taken by Highsmith, and she was "the only living photographer documenting America's milestones to have an individual namesake collection."[54]

Highsmith's donations create a copyright-free and royalty-free archive of photographs;[55] the Library of Congress has said that Highsmith's "generosity in dedicating the rights to the American people for free access" has made the Archives a valuable resource.[50] C. Ford Peatross, the former director of LOC's Center for Architecture called Highsmith's donation of her photography "one of the greatest acts of generosity" in LOC's history,[56] contributing to a new "permanent record of the country and its people for the common good."[22]

In 2009, the LOC acquired Highsmith's "born digital" collection (photographs that originated in the digital format rather than as film transferred to digital) and made it available as Carol M. Highsmith's America: Documenting the 21st Century. The collection emphasizes what Highsmith calls "Disappearing America," including 200 shots taken along U.S. Route 66 in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma.[14]

Highsmith has also photographed the LOC's own facilities, such as the Thomas Jefferson Building, in several series.[57] Some of these photographs were included in a 2013 e-book, Great Photographs From the Library of Congress.[58]

In 2016, the nonprofit Creative Commons wrote that "Highsmith's project predates our work as Creative Commons, but her work is very much in the spirit of our community. By removing copyright restrictions from her photographs, Highsmith is engaged in the important work of growing a robust commons built on gratitude and usability; her singular archive at the Library of Congress is a testament to one woman's passion and generosity."[59]

Influences

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Highsmith cites two female photographers, Frances Benjamin Johnston and Dorothea Lange, as influences.[6] Johnston, whom Highsmith calls her "beau ideal," produced studies of southern plantations, African-American and American Indian schools, national parks, and studio portraits of prominent Americans from the 1890s to 1950s.[60] Johnston donated her lifetime body of photographic work to the Library of Congress, prompting Highsmith to do the same.[14] Johnston and Highsmith took self-portraits, perched in the same location beneath a rock formation in Yellowstone National Park, a century apart.[61] Lange is remembered for her fieldwork for the federal Farm Security Administration among migrant workers and other dispossessed families during the Great Depression of the 1930s;[62] Highsmith returned to the subject decades later, photographing surviving shacks in the Weedpatch "Okie" camp in Kern County, California, that was the setting for much of John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath.[63]

Getty Images/Alamy lawsuit

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In July 2016, Highsmith sued two stock photography organizations, Getty Images and Alamy, and their agents, over their attempts to assert copyright over, and charge fees for the use of, 18,755 of her images, after Getty sent her a bill for one of her own images that she had used on her own website.[64][65][66] In November 2016, the judge hearing the case dismissed much of Highsmith's case on grounds that she had relinquished her claim of copyright when she donated much of her work to the Library of Congress. The remainder of the lawsuit was settled by the parties out of court.[67]

Commissions and awards

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  • Award of Excellence, Communications Arts Magazine, 1985[19]
  • Pennsylvania Avenue Development Commission, 1987[14]
  • Crescent Books Imprint, Random House Publishers, 36 books, 1997–2003[68]
  • Photography of historic Federal buildings and art, for the General Services Administration, from 1999[41]
  • Photography of presidential and other notables' belongings for the Museum Management Program of the National Park Service[69]
  • Exclusive photographer of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) 150, America's Favorite Architecture, 2007[70]
  • General Services Administration Design Award, 2009[71]
  • In 2010, Highsmith photographed Alabama as the first state in her "21st Century America" project, funded by businessman George F. Landegger, whose family had operated pulp plants in the state. Landegger then donated funds to the Library of Congress for Highsmith to continue documentation of the American states.[72]
  • During 2012 and 2013 Highsmith worked throughout California, visually documenting the entire state. The collection, known as the Jon B. Lovelace California Collection at the Library of Congress, was funded by the Capital Group, a California investment firm, in memory of Lovelace, who died in 2011.[39]
  • Forty-eight of Highsmith's images were included in Not an Ostrich: and Other Images from America's Library, a 2018 exhibition at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, assembled by curator Anne Wilkes Tucker from among the LOC's collection.[73][74][75] The exhibit's title was borrowed from a 1930 photograph in the national library's collection of a rare, fluffy-feathered goose held by an actress at a Madison Square Garden poultry show, thought to be taken by an unnamed photographer in the employ of the Underwood & Underwood Co. that produced stereograph views.[76] Highsmith spoke at the Annenberg Space for Photography as part of its Iris Nights Lecture Series.[77]
  • Two of Highsmith's photographs have been chosen by the U.S. Postal Service to be featured on U.S. postage stamps: an image of the Jefferson Memorial (selected in 2002).[78] a tightly-cropped, black-and-white image of the statue of Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial (issued 2014).[79]
  • Inducted into the Minnehaha Academy Hall of Fame.[80]

Updates on recent activities as of February 2026

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In 2025, Highsmith and Landphair returned from a photo-gathering expedition in the American West, at which time they noted that they had put 134,000 miles on their 2019 Ford Expedition and had, in toto, topped 2 million miles on the road since their travels on several projects leading to image donations to the Library of Congress that began 44 years previously.[81]

They immediately began trips closer to their home in Hagerstown, Md., gathering images for a 256-page coffee-table book about their home state of Maryland, the eighth such volume in a series about individual U.S. states — this one published by Highsmith's Chelsea Publishing, LLC in partnership with Maryland Public Television.[82]

Over the years, a production team from the nationwide Public Broadcasting System, had caught up with Highsmith "in action" in several locations across the country, in preparation for a PBS documentary, "Capturing America: the Carol Highsmith Story," scheduled to debut on PBS stations beginning in July 2026.[83]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Carol M. Highsmith

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from Grokipedia
Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946) is an American photographer and visual documentarian best known for her comprehensive photographic archive capturing the , landscapes, people, and cultural landmarks of the across all 50 states. Her work, which spans over four decades, emphasizes the beauty, resilience, and historical significance of , often focusing on preservation efforts, urban and rural scenes, and pivotal events. Highsmith launched her professional career in 1980 while studying at the Corcoran School of Photography in , where she undertook a three-year project documenting the restoration of the historic Willard Hotel. Early in her career, she employed large-format cameras, such as Swiss-made 4x5-inch and 8x10-inch models, to produce images with exceptional clarity and detail, later transitioning to professional digital equipment for broader accessibility. Her notable projects include books on the rebuilding of and the restoration of Union Station (1988), a photographic study of the (1994), documentation of the and reactions to the Shanksville crash following the , and an examination of disadvantaged families in 22 American cities from 2000 to 2002. Since 1992, Highsmith has donated tens of thousands of her photographs to the , forming the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, which now comprises over 100,000 images, dedicated to the and available for unrestricted public use since 2002. Her ongoing efforts have included traveling the length of in 2012–2013 to capture its diverse people and places, recording the impacts of the on landmarks like empty streets in major cities and community responses such as New Orleans' "Yardi Gras," preserving "disappearing America" through images of rural farmsteads in (2018), and in 2024, documenting historic sites along Route 66. Influenced by pioneering photographers like and , Highsmith's archive serves as a vital, evolving record of the nation's history and optimism.

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Family

Carol Louise McKinney, later known as Carol M. Highsmith, was born on May 18, 1946, in Leaksville, (now part of Eden). She was the daughter of Luther Carlton McKinney, a traveling salesman and enthusiastic amateur photographer, and Ruth Ragsdale Carter McKinney, who later worked with evangelist . Highsmith had at least one , an older named Sara. The family soon relocated to , , where Highsmith spent much of her childhood in a Midwestern urban setting contrasted by summers visiting relatives on her maternal grandparents' tobacco farm in and with extended family in , Georgia. These road trips, often with her mother driving and her father capturing images along the way, immersed young Highsmith in the varied landscapes of small-town America, rural fields, and historic sites, fostering her early fascination with visual documentation. Her father's habit of photographing family moments throughout her life provided Highsmith with a personal visual archive that later inspired her own career, allowing her to "see your whole life unfold in front of you."

College Years

After graduating from in in 1964, Highsmith attended in , for one year before moving to . She later enrolled at in Washington, D.C., where she eventually earned her college degree through an Accreditation of Prior Experiential Learning (APEL) program, completing requirements over 18 years of night classes alongside her day jobs. To support her studies, Highsmith worked part-time in the broadcasting industry, including as an advertising sales representative for radio stations in after moving there at age 19. During her university period, Highsmith gained her initial exposure to through courses at the Corcoran School of Art and Design, also in Washington, D.C., where she honed technical skills and undertook assignments such as documenting the restoration of the Willard Hotel. These experiences, combined with campus activities and her broadcasting background, sparked her interest in visual storytelling within media. Upon completing her degree, Highsmith's aspirations centered on careers in media and , leading her to transition from sales roles into professional , influenced by her academic training and early practical work.

Personal Life

First Marriage and Divorce

Carol M. Highsmith married Mark Highsmith in 1966 while attending , adopting the married name Carol M. Highsmith. The couple welcomed their daughter in 1968. Highsmith faced significant challenges in balancing the demands of new motherhood with her studies and initial professional endeavors, leading to relocation decisions after graduation that reflected the strains of early adulthood. In 1969, Mark Highsmith died by suicide in , leaving Highsmith to raise their daughter alone, which contributed to her growing sense of independence during this period.

Second Marriage and Family

Highsmith married Ted Landphair, a journalist and essayist with the Voice of America, forming a partnership grounded in shared interests in media and cultural documentation. The couple has collaborated on more than 50 photographic tour and pictorial souvenir books, blending Highsmith's images with Landphair's narratives to capture American landscapes and landmarks. Their marriage created a blended family, incorporating Highsmith's daughter from her previous marriage alongside Landphair's children, with the family providing mutual support amid demanding careers in creative fields. Residing in the Washington, D.C., area, Highsmith and Landphair maintain a close-knit home life that accommodates extensive travel; Landphair frequently joins her on road trips, driving across the country while managing logistics such as metadata for her photographs donated to the Library of Congress, thereby encouraging and enabling her ongoing documentation projects.

Early Career

Advertising and Broadcasting Roles

While working in the broadcasting industry in the late and to support her education at , Carol M. Highsmith took on sales and marketing roles, leveraging her writing skills in and media. She worked at an ABC-owned radio station in , where she excelled in commission-based sales, including European broadcasts and a major boxing match. Highsmith's career expanded to include production and executive positions across several markets. She produced television shows in New York and served as an advertising executive for radio stations in and Washington, D.C. During this period, she also worked for prominent companies such as ABC and , contributing to their operations and serving on numerous industry boards. These roles honed her storytelling abilities, providing stability that supported her growing family. A key achievement came in the late when Highsmith won a sales contest at the ABC station, earning a trip to the ; a client gifted her a camera during the journey, igniting her interest in visual documentation. She extended the trip to include "Red China," capturing her first notable photographs, which marked the beginning of her shift toward . By the early , after approximately 18 years in , Highsmith left the field due to burnout and a desire for greater creative , enrolling in night classes at the Corcoran School of Art and Design to formalize her photographic training.

Transition to Photography

After leaving her position at WMAL radio around 1982 following 18 years in , Carol M. Highsmith pursued her interest in through informal night classes at the Corcoran School of Art in . Her broadcasting background provided skills that later informed her ability to document architectural stories visually. Highsmith's first major professional assignment came in 1980, when she was hired by developer Oliver T. Carr to document the restoration of the historic Willard Hotel in , a project that spanned from 1980 to 1986. She captured the hotel's dilapidated state before renovation, its construction process amid challenges like dust and debris, and the architectural details of the restored Beaux-Arts structure upon its reopening. For this work and her initial portfolio, Highsmith acquired professional film-based equipment, including a Swiss-made 4x5-inch Arca-Swiss , moving beyond her earlier consumer-level cameras like a borrowed K1000. This allowed her to produce high-resolution architectural images that formed the foundation of her emerging body of work focused on and renovations. Highsmith began her freelance career with small commissions from local Washington, D.C., publications and businesses, often photographing nearby structures after completing the Willard project. The transition involved financial risks, as she left a stable broadcasting salary to build her photography business amid inconsistent early gigs. By 1984, Highsmith had established herself as an architectural photographer, having assembled a modest portfolio from her freelance assignments and the Willard .

Photography Career

Early Photographic Work (1980s–1990s)

Highsmith's professional career gained momentum in the early with her of the Willard Hotel restoration in , marking her initial foray into architectural imaging. Expanding beyond this project, she secured commissions from the between 1985 and 1990, including work that contributed to the 1988 publication Pennsylvania Avenue: America's Main Street, a volume highlighting the avenue's architectural landmarks and urban redevelopment efforts. These opportunities extended to collaborations with historic preservation groups, such as the , resulting in assignments to photograph restoration initiatives nationwide during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A notable outcome was the 1994 book America Restored, co-authored with Ted Landphair, which featured Highsmith's images of two significant preservation projects per state, emphasizing efforts to revive aging structures and communities. Highsmith's commissions spurred her first extensive travels to capture U.S. landmarks, with early trips focusing on the Northeast—such as sites—and the Midwest, where she documented instances of alongside active restoration projects in industrial cities and historic districts. Her photographs often contrasted dilapidated facades with renewal processes, underscoring the tension between preservation and progress in American urban landscapes. Technically, Highsmith evolved her approach by adopting large-format 4x5-inch view cameras, including the Swiss-made Arca-Swiss model, which provided the sharp detail essential for architectural work; she supplemented these with 35mm cameras for fieldwork requiring greater mobility. This period also saw her first exhibitions of architectural series, primarily through book launches and displays organized by preservation societies, such as those tied to the D.C. Preservation League in the early 1990s. In 1992, Highsmith reached a pivotal milestone by donating roughly 500 images from her growing portfolio to the , intentionally placing them in the to promote unrestricted access and educational use. This strategy reflected her commitment to archiving America's for future generations, with the initial donation encompassing views from her early travels and commissions. Amid these professional demands, Highsmith integrated her with family responsibilities, managing frequent road trips while raising children; her , Ted Landphair, provided crucial logistical support as a traveling companion and collaborator, handling planning and co-authoring projects to facilitate her fieldwork.

Major Projects (2000s–Present)

In the 2000s, Highsmith expanded her documentation efforts through collaborations with the United States Postal Service, providing photographs for commemorative stamps. Her image of the Jefferson Memorial was selected for a Priority Mail stamp in 2002, marking an early recognition of her architectural work. This partnership continued in 2014 when the USPS featured her close-up photograph of the Lincoln Memorial statue on a 21-cent stamp issued for Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Highsmith launched her flagship "This is America!" project in 2010, aiming to create a comprehensive visual record of all 50 states, U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia by 2026. Supported by the nonprofit This is America! Foundation, the initiative began with as the first state, funded by businessman George F. Landegger, and has since encompassed urban neighborhoods, small-town scenes, rural landscapes, and natural sites across the nation. As of 2025, the project has generated over 100,000 images, with more than 70,000 donated and digitized in the archive, expected to exceed 100,000 total upon completion in 2026. In the , Highsmith intensified coverage of rural and small-town America, capturing and cultural landmarks to preserve a snapshot of the early . Recent phases of the project include documentation of Route 66, highlighting the historic highway's iconic motels, diners, and roadside attractions through interviews and on-site photography. Highsmith has collaborated with the , documenting properties like the and contributing to Route 66 preservation efforts ahead of its 2026 centennial. These partnerships have enabled coverage of diverse sites, from urban revitalization projects to remote natural areas. As the project nears its 2026 conclusion, Highsmith has focused on digital archiving to ensure long-term accessibility. Highsmith's work has faced logistical challenges, including extensive travel with a kit comprising multiple lenses and high-resolution cameras, including Canon, Phase One, and models, often packed into a Ford SUV for cross-country shoots. The disrupted 2020s fieldwork, limiting access to public spaces and prompting adaptations like photographing empty landmarks, such as Union Station in , and socially distanced events like New Orleans' Yardi Gras in place of . Despite these obstacles, she continued contributing images that reflect America's resilience during the crisis.

Artistic Approach

Photographic Style

Carol M. Highsmith's photographic style is characterized by a approach that prioritizes precision, clarity, and historical preservation, positioning her work as an enduring visual record of American architecture, landscapes, and cultural sites. She employs high-resolution digital equipment, notably the Phase One IQ4 150-megapixel camera, to capture images with exceptional detail and suitable for archival purposes. This emphasis on technical fidelity ensures that her photographs serve as reliable historic documents, revealing the depth and texture of subjects like landmark buildings and rural structures without alteration or embellishment. Highsmith has described herself as a "visual documentarian whose work will have meaning and usefulness for the ages," reflecting her commitment to creating an exhaustive archive of the . Thematically, Highsmith focuses on architectural precision and landscapes as historic records, frequently emphasizing the enduring qualities of buildings, barns, lighthouses, and natural environments that represent "disappearing America," though her work also includes people in cultural and social contexts. Her compositions highlight contextual breadth, using large-format techniques in her early career and digital tools later to produce clear, well-thought-out images that capture authenticity through natural and controlled lighting. She favors to convey vibrancy and realism, employing tripods and strobes for stability while shooting series of views to document subjects comprehensively, such as renovations along or the pre-9/11 World Trade Center from aerial perspectives. Highsmith's style has evolved from film-based methods in the , utilizing Swiss-made 4x5-inch view cameras with color transparencies for depth and detail, to digital formats post-2000, including Canon and Phase One systems since 2002. This transition allowed for greater efficiency in her ongoing project to photograph all 50 states, , and , amassing more than 70,000 images donated to the , expected to exceed 100,000. Known as "America's ," she intends her oeuvre to form a complete, copyright-free visual archive for future generations, underscoring a sense of urgency in preserving everyday American scenes.

Influences

Carol M. Highsmith's photographic vision was profoundly shaped by the work of pioneering female photographers, particularly , whose documentation of American architecture and public buildings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries served as a primary influence. Highsmith has cited Johnston's commitment to preserving vanishing aspects of American life through her extensive archive of approximately 20,000 photographs, now housed in the , as a direct inspiration for her own decision to donate her photographs to the same institution starting in 1992. This admiration led Highsmith to adopt a similar ethos of public accessibility, ensuring her work contributes to a national record rather than private collection. Another key influence was , whose Depression-era photographs of rural landscapes and social conditions impacted Highsmith's focus on capturing the everyday textures of small-town and rural America. Highsmith has expressed marvel at Lange's photographs. This influence manifested in Highsmith's documentary approach, emphasizing social and environmental stories over purely aesthetic compositions. Highsmith also drew inspiration from Ansel Adams, whose landscape photography she encountered during her studies at the Corcoran School of Art and Design in the early 1980s, where Adams' exhibitions highlighted technical precision and environmental advocacy. She has reflected on marveling at Adams' mastery of light and form, which reinforced her interest in high-resolution documentation of America's natural and built environments. These influences collectively drove Highsmith's national project, as she noted in a 2014 interview, motivating her to travel extensively and create a visual archive for future generations.

Legacy and Recognition

Donations to Library of Congress

In 1992, Carol M. Highsmith entered into an agreement with the 's Prints and Photographs Division to donate her photographs directly into the , ensuring their unrestricted use and preservation. This initiative marked the beginning of what would become one of the largest ongoing photographic contributions to the institution, with Highsmith providing physical prints and negatives initially. Starting in 2002, she transitioned to delivering high-resolution digital files, which facilitated broader online dissemination. As of March 2025, the Highsmith Archive encompasses over 70,000 images, documenting architecture, landscapes, cityscapes, cultural events, and people across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. In March 2025, the announced new additions to the archive as part of broader digital collections updates. Highsmith personally curates and selects the images for donation, organizing them into thematic groups known as LOTs (Library of Congress of Topical photographs), which she delivers digitally to the institution. The then handles cataloging, metadata creation, and storage— including cold storage for originals—under the dedicated "Highsmith Archive" designation, making the collection searchable and downloadable via the loc.gov website. The archive's impact lies in its provision of free, public-domain access to these images, which have been widely utilized in educational curricula, academic research, and public exhibitions. For instance, selections from the collection featured prominently in the Library of Congress's "Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America's Library" exhibition, held from March 2022 to January 2025 in the 's Southwest Gallery. Contributions from Highsmith's "This is America" project, which systematically documents each state, further enrich the archive's comprehensive portrayal of contemporary . Highsmith's motivation for these donations stems from a profound commitment to the perpetual and unrestricted preservation of American heritage, particularly elements of vanishing cultural and architectural landscapes such as historic barns and lighthouses. Inspired by earlier documentary photographers like , she has described the work as "a dream job to showcase America… for ," emphasizing its role in creating an enduring visual record. In 2025, the archive's integration into digital initiatives, including the Carol Highsmith Photo Archive App and interactive GIS mapping tools, has enhanced its utility for geospatial research and public exploration.

Awards and Commissions

Highsmith received her first major photographic recognition in 1985 with an Award of Excellence from Communication Arts magazine for her documentation of the Sears House restoration in Throughout her career, she has undertaken significant commissions from government agencies and cultural institutions, including the General Services Administration (GSA), for which she earned the GSA Design Award in 2009 for her photographic contributions to federal building projects. Other notable freelance assignments include work for the , photographing presidential homes and collections of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Truman, and Carter; the ; the ; and various museums, capturing architectural landmarks and historic sites across the United States. The U.S. Postal Service has prominently featured Highsmith's images in stamp designs, selecting her photograph of the as the central image for the 2002 Priority Mail stamp series. In 2014, her close-up photo of the statue was used for the 21¢ issued on his birthday. Highsmith (class of 1964) has been inducted into the Fine Arts Hall of Fame at her alma mater, , recognizing her contributions as a distinguished photographer. During the 2020s, the has cited her extensive documentation of their properties, such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's , and featured her work in initiatives highlighting America's architectural heritage, including a 2024 interview on her Route 66 photography project ahead of its centennial.

Getty Images and Alamy Lawsuit

In 2016, Carol M. Highsmith discovered that stock photography agencies Getty Images and Alamy were offering her images for license as proprietary stock photos, despite her having donated them to the Library of Congress under terms dedicating them to the public domain for unrestricted use. The issue came to light when Highsmith received a cease-and-desist letter from Alamy's licensing compliance service demanding a $120 payment for her nonprofit organization's use of one of her own photographs on its website; further investigation revealed that Getty was selling access to at least 18,755 of her images, complete with watermarks and priced at $200 or more per download. On July 25, 2016, Highsmith filed a class-action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against (US), Inc., Ltd., and affiliates including License Compliance Services and Picscout, Inc., alleging violations of the (DMCA) for distributing false copyright management information, unfair competition, and deceptive trade practices. The complaint sought statutory damages potentially exceeding $1 billion, including trebled amounts due to Getty's history of similar violations. Proceedings advanced with defendants filing motions to dismiss in September 2016; on October 28, 2016, Judge granted these motions in part, dismissing all federal claims, including direct , claims, and all DMCA counts, while allowing the state-law claims under New York General Business Law §§ 349 and 350 to proceed. Claims against Picscout were dismissed without prejudice earlier that month. The case concluded on November 17, 2016, via a stipulation of with prejudice under Federal Rule of 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), signaling an out-of-court settlement whose terms remain undisclosed. The partial ruling established precedent that creators who dedicate works to the relinquish infringement claims over the images themselves but may pursue remedies for misrepresentations of status, influencing subsequent discussions on protecting public domain integrity. Highsmith's suit underscored vulnerabilities in digital image distribution and spurred awareness of stock agencies' practices. As of 2025, no additional litigation has arisen between Highsmith and these defendants on this issue, though she maintains vigilance over photo platforms for ongoing misuse.

References

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  41. https://www.techdirt.com/2019/04/01/getty-images-sued-yet-again-trying-to-license-public-domain-images/
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