Mary Morris Lawrence, who was the first female photographer hired by the AP, died on August 12th at age 95.

“When The Associated Press hired her, AP male photographers joked that they no longer would be able to change their pants in the darkroom,” a columnist for the paper wrote in 2007. AP records show  Lawrence joined the AP in New York on November 16, 1936 and worked there for three and a half years. She later shot for the tabloid newspaper PM before moving to California to photograph celebrities. Her subjects included Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, Leonard Bernsteain, Frank Sinatra, Humphrey Bogart, Salvador Dali and Orson Welles.

I pretty much re-wrote everything that was in the PDN article but you can read the extended version here. Reading through her obituary gives you a great sense of the firey kind of person she was and makes one re-evaluate how one is living their own life. Kicking butt and making differences? Or just barely kicking? I like obits for that very reason…I know it sounds weird but reading about people’s lives and experiences are kind of inspiring. Her obituary ends with the suggestion: “In lieu of flowers, Mary would ask you to join the League of Women Voters, shop at Farmer Joes, write a letter to the editor, or break a glass ceiling!” Love it. I hope my obit will be as full of life as hers was.