quickly deteriorating structures in these communities that portrayed the daily life of common southerners. Her photographs remain an important resource for modern architects, historians and conservationists. In 1928 she exhibited a series of 247 photographs of Fredericksburg, Virginia, ranging from the decaying mansions of the rich to the shacks of the poor. The exhibition was entitled Pictorial Survey—Old Fredericksburg, Virginia—Old Falmouth and Nearby Places and described as "A Series of Photographic Studies of the Architecture of the Region Dating by Tradition from Colonial Times to Circa 1830", and as "An Historical Record and to Preserve Something of the Atmosphere of An Old Virginia Town." As a result of this exhibit, the University of Virginia hired her to document its buildings, and the state of North Carolina commissioned her to record its architectural history. Louisiana hired Johnston to document its huge inventory of rapidly deteriorating plantations. She was given a grant in 1933 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to document Virginia's early architecture. This led to a series of grants and photographs in eight other southern states; copies of all of her photographs from these projects were given to the Library of Congress for public use. In December 1935, Johnston began a year long project to capture historic structures of the Colonial Era in Virginia. This was intended to be a one-year project, but it developed into an eight-year extensive project. She traveled 50,000 miles and surveyed 95 counties in Virginia. Final years, death and legacy Johnston was named an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects for her work in preserving old and endangered buildings. Her collections have been purchased by institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Although her relentless traveling was curtailed by gasoline rationing in the Second World War, the tireless Johnston continued to photograph. She bought a house in the French Quarter of New Orleans in 1940, and retired there in 1945. She died in New Orleans in 1952 at the age of eighty-eight. Gallery References Further reading Daniel, Pete & Smock, Raymond (1974). A Talent for Detail: The Photographs of Miss Frances Benjamin Johnston 1889–1910. Harmony Books, New York. Frady, Kelsey T. "Frances Benjamin Johnston: Imaging the New Woman through Photography." M.A. thesis (University of Alabama, 2012). Berch, Bettina (2000). The Woman Behind the Lens: Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864–1952.