Townships on Outskirts of Johannesburg

Townships on Outskirts of Johannesburg, 1948. Photographic image of a tent put together with various materials. A girl is standing in front of it. There are three worn tin cans stacked on top of each other with smoke coming from the top. This is located on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Photograph by Constance Stuart Larrabee, 1948.

In 1945, Constance Stuart returned from her assignment as the first female South African war correspondent in World War II. Her reputation as a photographer grew. She maintained a photographic studio in Pretoria and Johannesburg. This series of images which she entitled "Johannesburg Black Man" depict life in downtown Johannesburg and in parts of the city, where Black South Africans lived, such as Sophiatown, Pimville, and Newclare. A second series of images focuses on Father Huddleston's work in Sophiatown. In 1948-1949, in the early days of apartheid, Stuart documented the building of the South Western townships (Soweto) and the way Africans adjusted to this new environment.

There is one 8x10 black and white fiber-based print of this negative in the Constance Stuart Larrabee Collection. EEPA also produced an 8x10 study print for reference purposes.