American Highway, Texas, Women

Isabel Gilmore: Woman of the Empty Lands

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Isabel Gilmore, Salt Flat Cafe, Salt Flat, Texas, 1988

Story and photograph by Bruce Berman

There were people who grew up along two lane highways who had, at most, radios to connect them to the outer world. They lived in quietude. A car would occasionally pass on U.S. 62/180. Some would stop.
I stopped.
She put down her local paper (from Van Horn, I think it was). She made eggs, fried some hash browns and made toast. Everything she was and did was from a past time. These were moments of grace.
She was far from being a receding type, had lots of questions, and I think her main form of being informed was interviewing anyone who stopped at her cafe. She had been doing this for a long time and I think her parents did it before her.

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border photography, Mexican History, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Women, Women Warriors

SOLDADERAS/WOMEN SOLDIERS

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Maria Gonzalez and soldaderas.
Maria Gonzalez and soldaderas, Photograph from the Runyon Collection/Library of Congress

 

This photograph was taken during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), exact date unkown.The photograph was taken by commercial photographer Robert Runyon (1881-1968), a longtime resident of South Texas. His photographs document the history and development of South Texas and the border, including the Mexican Revolution, the U.S. military presence at Fort Brown and along the border prior to and during World War I, and the growth and development of the Rio Grande Valley.

This image was shot on a glass-plate negative ; 5×7 in. Camera unknown.

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