Mary Anderson, who was a friend of her mother. In 1899, Johnston was commissioned by Hollis Burke Frissell to photograph the buildings and students of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia in order to show its success. This commission added to her reputation.<ref>Laura Wexler, "Black and White and Color: American Photographs at the Turn of the Century," in Prospects: An Annual of the American Cultural Studies' 13 (1988): 343.</ref> This series, documenting the ordinary life of the school, is considered among her most telling work. It was displayed at The Exhibit of American Negroes of the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900. Her photographs of the Hampton Institute were utilized in Robert Wilson's production of August Strindberg's A Dream Play. She photographed events such as world's fairs and peace-treaty signings. Johnston took the last portrait of President William McKinley, at the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 just before he was assassinated there. With her partner, Mattie Edwards Hewitt, a successful freelance home and garden photographer in her own right, Johnston opened a studio in New York City in 1913. Her mother and aunt moved into her new apartment. Hewitt wrote Johnston love letters over the course of their relationship, which are chronicled in The Woman Behind the Lens: The Life and Work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864–1952. Many of the early letters focused on Hewitt's admiration for Johnston's work, but as their romance progressed, they increasingly expressed her love: "...when I need you or you need me — [we] must hold each other all the closer and with your hand in mine, holding it tight..." Johnston lectured at New York University on business for women. The pair of women produced a series of studies of New York City architecture through the 1920s. In early 1920 her mother died in New York. In the 1920s, Johnston became increasingly interested in photographing architecture. As New York changed under pressure of development, she wanted to document buildings and gardens that were falling into disrepair or were about to be redeveloped and lost. As her focus in architecture grew, she became interested in documenting the architecture of the American South. Johnston was interested in preserving the everyday history of the American South through her art; she accomplished this by photographing barns, inns, and other ordinary structures. She was not interested in photographing the grand homes and plantations of the South, but rather the