Frances Carpenter

Frances Aretta Carpenter was born in Washington, D.C. in 1890. Her mother was Joanna Condict. Her father was noted traveller and travel-writer Frank G. Carpenter, and her brother John Carpenter. Unusually for the times, her father took her traveling with him as his secretary and photographic assistant from her early teenage years, with a break to complete her college education starting in 1908.

In 1912 she graduated from Smith College, and returned to work as her father's assistant.[1]

From an early age, she photographed ethnographically diverse subjects for her father's books.[2] The pair traveled extensively throughout the world, and she remained in active partnership with Frank Carpenter until his death, in 1924.[3]

In 1930, Carpenter published Tales of a Basque Grandmother, her first collection of folktales. This would also be the first of her popular Grandmother series, where she used the device of a central organizing narrator to convey details of national culture as well as its folk legends. But her real breakthrough would come three years later with the publication of Tales of a Russian Grandmother, (1933) printed with the now classic illustrations by Ivan Bilibin.

In the early 1960s, she visited Canada and the Mediterranean. In 1964 she visited Africa and traveled throughout the continent by car. In 1966 she was in Japan and Korea. Her last major folklore collection, People from the Sky; Ainu Tales from Northern Japan, which detailed the vanishing culture of the repressed Ainu people of North Japan, was published in 1972.[3] She edited work for her father, including Carp's Washington, a collection of excerpts from her father's Washington columns. It was published in 1960, and became a best seller. The volume reflected the Washington life and mores of Frank Carpenter's times.[4]

Carpenter was a fellow for the Royal Geographical Society. She was president of the Smith College Alumnae Association.[1] She was also on their Board of Trustees from 1936 until 1944. From 1960 until 1930 she was on the Board of Counselors. She also served as vice president of the International Society of Woman Geographers from 1939 until 1942. She was also a member of the Sulgrave Club, the Cosmos Club, the Chevy Chase Club and the Cosmopolitan Club.[3]

On April 6, 1920, Carpenter married William Chapin Huntington, a career diplomat with whom she continued to travel all over the world.[3] He worked at the Embassy of the United States, Paris and the United States Foreign Service from 1920 until 1961.[1][3] The couple had two children: Joanna Huntington Noel and Edith Chapin Huntington Williams.[5] Although, as was traditional at the time of her marriage, Ms. Carpenter took her husband's surname, she continued to publish under her birthname.

Frances Carpenter died on November 2, 1972.[1]

Carpenter is interred at Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.[5] The Frances Carpenter Papers are held in the collection of the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College.[1] The Library of Congress has a collection of approximately 7,000 negatives and 16,800 photographs taken by the Carpenters which document the ethnographic work begun by her father and continued through Carpenter's own career.[2]

• Carpenter Collection from the Library of Congress
• Frances Carpenter papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections