Born: 1823 (circa), United States
Died: 1875
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Susan Charter Humphrey
The following is republished with permission from the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail.
Susan Charter (ca.1823-1875) was the first woman to open a photography studio in Boston. She lived in a large house on Mill and Everett Streets in Dorchester that burned down in the 1960s.
Little is known about Susan Charter’s early life other than that she was born in Marlboro, Vermont, and moved to Boston with her family as a small child. She is believed to be the photographer, Miss S.R. Charter, profiled in The Daguerreian Annual of 2005. She opened a photography studio at Tremont Temple in Boston in 1844, becoming the first woman to do so in the city and in all probability the first in Massachusetts. Charter’s daguerreian gallery was the seventh such establishment operating in the Boston during that year and remained in business for approximately four years. Susan Charter married Francis Josiah Humphrey, a wealthy merchant, in 1852. No occupation is listed for Susan on their marriage record, since only that of the groom was required at the time. The couple moved to a large house at the corner of Mill and Everett Streets designed in the Italianate style by noted architect Luther Briggs. The house burned down in the 1960s, and the site is now occupied by town houses.