Woman photographer went ‘where no man had gone before’

Bill Knight column for 5-23, 24 or 25, 2019

Amid news of apparent temptations to intervene militarily in Iran or Venezuela, it’s somehow reassuring to remember when distant lands weren’t places to invade but to explore, and to recall one Illinois woman who against many odds became a remarkable pioneer.

Photojournalist Ruth Robertson was small but strong, with a determination that led her to become world famous, only to be nearly forgotten over the years. Born 114 years ago this week, she grew accustomed to being the first or the only: the first female photographer at the Peoria Star newspaper and on the sidelines at Wrigley Field; the only woman photographer at the 1944 national political conventions and the first American female photojournalist to get an overseas war-correspondent assignment, with the Army in Alaska during World War II.

But 70 years ago, Robertson really went “where no man had gone before”: photographing the world’s highest waterfall deep in the Venezuelan rainforest, where four expeditions (led by men) had failed.

Robertson’s parents were divorced within a year of her birth in Taylorville, Ill., and after her mother and grandmother died, she moved in with her father in Peoria, where she learned photography from him. She eventually persuaded Peoria’s morning paper to run her material (but calling her a “photo girl,” the newspaper for months didn’t provide her with equipment, give her assignments or pay her.)

“She had to prove herself,” said Scott Eisenstein, who worked on a projected documentary titled “The Forgotten Expedition: The True Story of Ruth Robertson & Angel Falls.”

The paper hired her in 1939, and she became the first female photographer there. Editors let her handle lighter features, food and fashion, and occasional columns. Eventually, the enterprising woman interviewed celebrities such as the Republic of China’s First Lady, Mademoiselle Chiang Kai-shek, pitching great Dizzy Dean, actor John Barrymore, and anthropologist Margaret Mead.

In 1942, she moved to Chicago to work for Acme Newspictures and then helped launch the independent Press Syndicate. Her stories ranged from the 1943 World Series and the Democratic and Republican political conventions in Chicago.

Sent to Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, she was the only female among the journalists stationed there, and she survived a Japanese attack on a fighter plane in which she was a passenger – plus a stubborn general.

“She was met with resistance from the commanding officer of the [Army’s] Alaska Division,” said Patricia Hubbard, who’s working on a Robertson biography. “He ordered her detention for 34 days, insisting no ‘newspaperwoman’ be allowed on his base, insisting that she be recalled.

“He called the War Department — but so did she,” Hubbard continued. “The ugly spat hit the newspapers, [and] Illinois Gov. Dwight Green and then-U.S. Rep. Everett Dirksen defended her.

“The end result,” Hubbard added: “The general was recalled, and Robertson stayed.”

After the war, she worked at the New York Herald-Tribune but became bored and quit, seeking adventure in South America, commenting, “Here was a whole chunk of the northern part of this continent to be explored. The frontier countries were where the good stories were to be found.”

She heard about Angel Falls, said to be a mile high in Venezuela’s interior, and in 1947, Robertson accompanied a pilot on a flight over the jungle, saw it (“like 20 Niagaras atop each other,” travel author Dominic Hamilton wrote in 2001), and resolved to reach it at ground level, verify its size and photograph it.

She recruited an engineer to survey its height, a radio operator, filmmaker, guide and 10 natives of the region, and the 1949 trip took 19½ days enduring rain and heat, challenging physical demands and trails shared with jaguars, monkeys, tarantulas and lizards. The group’s canoes ran aground, then almost sank, forcing them to bail, portage and carry bulky gear.

After reaching and photographing the 3,230-foot wonder – Earth’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall –

Robertson made headlines around the world, published in National Geographic and then covered in Life, Newsweek, the New York Times and Glamour and even congratulated by President Harry S Truman.

For years, she freelanced from Venezuela, contributing to Time and Life magazines and editing the Daily Journal, and later the American Society Bulletin in Mexico City. She moved back to the United States in the 1960s, and in 1975 published her account of the adventure, “Churun Meru: The Tallest Angel.”

Truly, as Eisenstein said, Robertson was “a fearless persona, [with] strength, good humor and an unflappable will to succeed.”