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{{short description|American academic (1903–1995)}} |
{{short description|American academic (1903–1995)}} |
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{{infobox academic |
{{infobox academic |
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|image = Alison Frantz ASCSA.jpeg |
| image = Alison Frantz ASCSA.jpeg |
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|alt = A woman in a short-sleeved dress, using a camera and tripod to photograph a Greek vase |
| alt = A woman in a short-sleeved dress, using a camera and tripod to photograph a Greek vase |
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|caption = At the [[American School of Classical Studies at Athens]], 1948 |
| caption = At the [[American School of Classical Studies at Athens]], 1948 |
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|birth_date = {{birth date|1903|09|27}} |
| birth_date = {{birth date|1903|09|27}} |
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|death_date = {{death date and age|1995|02|01|1903|09|27}} |
| death_date = {{death date and age|1995|02|01|1903|09|27}} |
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|education = {{plainlist|*[[Smith College]] |
| education = {{plainlist|*[[Smith College]] |
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*[[Columbia University]]}} |
*[[Columbia University]]}} |
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| workplaces = {{plainlist|*[[Princeton University]] |
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*[[American School of Classical Studies at Athens]]}} |
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| birth_name = Mary Alison Frantz |
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| death_place = [[Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital]], [[New Brunswick, New Jersey|New Brunswick]], New Jersey |
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| birth_place = [[Duluth]], Minnesota |
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}} |
}} |
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'''Alison Frantz''' (27 September 1903 – 1 February 1995) was an archaeological photographer and a [[Byzantine]] scholar. With degrees in Classical and Byzantine Studies, she traveled to Greece where she joined the Athenian Agora Excavations. She was the Agora's official photographer from 1939 until 1964 and is especially renowned for her photographs of Greek sculpture. As an archaeologist, she contributed to a better understanding and appreciation of the post-classical layers of the Agora excavations with publications on the Byzantine and Ottoman material. |
'''Mary Alison Frantz''' (27 September 1903 – 1 February 1995) was an archaeological photographer and a [[Byzantine]] scholar. With degrees in Classical and Byzantine Studies, she traveled to Greece where she joined the Athenian Agora Excavations. She was the Agora's official photographer from 1939 until 1964 and is especially renowned for her photographs of Greek sculpture. As an archaeologist, she contributed to a better understanding and appreciation of the post-classical layers of the Agora excavations with publications on the Byzantine and Ottoman material. |
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== Early life and education == |
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== Education == |
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Mary Alison Frantz{{Sfn|Lalaki|2013|p=184}} was born on 27 September 1903 in [[Duluth, Minnesota|Duluth]], Minnesota, the youngest of five children.{{sfnm|1a1=McCredie|1y=2000|1pages=214{{ndash}}215|2a1=Szegedy-Maszak|2y=1995|2p=62}} Her father, a newspaper publisher, died of [[pneumonia]] soon afterwards;{{Refn|{{harvnb|McCredie|2000|p=213}}. McCredie states that he died when Frantz was three years old; Szegedy-Maszak's profile of Frantz states that she was one.{{sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=62}}}} her Scottish mother moved the family to Edinburgh. Frantz received her first camera there, as a gift from her brother. After two years, the family returned to the United States. Her mother settled the family in [[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]]: Frantz later credited this decision to the proximity of [[Princeton University]], though she said that this was intended "for [her] brothers, of course".{{Sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=62}} |
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Frantz graduated with a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree in classics from [[Smith College]], a women's [[liberal arts college]], in 1924.{{sfn|McCredie|2000|p=214}} She subsequently spent a year as a fellow of the [[American Academy in Rome]],{{Sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=62}} during which she made her first visit to Greece, later in 1924.{{Sfn|Elliott|1995|p=26}} Between 1927 and 1929, she worked at [[Princeton University]] for the historian [[Charles Rufus Morey]], researching for his ''Index of Christian Art''.{{sfnm|1a1=McCredie|1y=2000|1p=214|2a1=Szegedy-Maszak|2y=1995|2p=62}} In 1929, she was appointed as a fellow of the [[American School of Classical Studies at Athens]].{{Sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=62}} She continued her graduate studies at [[Columbia University]], where she focused on the study of the Byzantine period.{{sfn|McCredie|2000|p=214}} |
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== Early career == |
== Early career == |
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Frantz started her career in the Athenian Agora Excavations in 1934, as an assistant of [[Lucy Talcott]] in the Record Department. Frantz had been fascinated by photography from a young age, seeing her brother developing photographs in his dark room, and soon she turned to archaeological photography. |
Frantz started her career in the Athenian Agora Excavations in January 1934,{{Refn|{{cite magazine|title=Announcements| date=February 1934| magazine=The Smith Alumnae Quarterly| publisher=Alumnae Association of Smith College| url=https://archive.org/details/smithalumn3334alum/page/n149/mode/2up?q=Frantz| via=Internet Archive| access-date=2024-01-21| p=330}}|name="SmithAlumni"}} as an assistant of [[Lucy Talcott]] in the Record Department. Frantz had been fascinated by photography from a young age, seeing her brother developing photographs in his dark room, and soon she turned to archaeological photography.{{sfn|Rotroff|2006|p=51}} She started helping Herman Wagner, the official photographer of the Agora and by 1939 she became the official photographer. Just before the Second World War, Frantz was charged with the task to photograph in two days more than six hundred tablets of [[Linear B]], discovered by the famous American archaeologists [[Carl Blegen]] in the Mycenaean palace of [[Pylos]]. It was largely these photographs that facilitated the decipherment of the Linear B script by [[Michael Ventris]].{{sfn|McCredie|2000|p=215}} |
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== Second World War and aftermath == |
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In the summer of 1941, Frantz and [[Rodney Young (archaeologist)|Rodney Young]], another archaeologist at the ASCSA, received a grant of $1,000 ({{Inflation|index=US|value=1000|start_year=1941|fmt=eq}}) to compile an index of the first ten volumes of ''[[Hesperia (journal)|Hesperia]]'', the school's academic journal. Young joined the [[Office of Strategic Services]] later that year; Frantz succeeded in creating a set of alphabetic index cards covering almost the whole index before herself joining the OSS in the summer of 1942.{{Sfn|Meritt|1943|p=33}} They were among several British and American archaeologists, including [[Carl Blegen]], [[Benjamin Dean Meritt|Benjamin Meritt]], [[T. Leslie Shear]] and the British [[Alan Wace]], to serve in Allied intelligence services in Greece.{{refn|{{harvnb|McCredie|2000|pages=215–216}}; {{harvnb|Vogeikoff-Brogan|2015|p=29}}. For Wace, see {{harvnb|Allen|2011|p=20}}. For the name of the Foreign Nationalities Branch, see {{harvnb|Lelaki|2013|p=184}}}} Frantz was recommended to the OSS by Meritt, and worked as Blegen's assistant: he had been made head of the Greek section of the organization's Foreign Nationalities Branch (FNB), based in Washington, D.C. The FNB was primarily tasked with interviewing people resident in the United States from European and Mediterranean ethic groups, and would interview and record their views on the politics and situation of their native countries. Frantz's official title was Junior Social Science Analyst; her work primarily focused on interviewing political exiles from Nazi-occupied Europe.{{refn|{{harvnb|Lelaki|2013|p=184}}. On the establishment and aims of the FNB, see {{harvnb|Szymczak|1999}}.}} Other American archaeologists in the FNB included Meritt and Shear.{{Sfn|Vogeikoff-Brogan|2015|p=29}} |
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During the Second World War, Frantz worked closely with the [[Office of Strategic Services]] and kept Washington informed about the political and military situation in Greece. After the war, she became a cultural attaché of the United States Embassy in Athens and worked to establish the [[Fulbright Program]] in Greece.<ref name=McCredie2>{{cite journal|last=McCredie|first=James R.|title=Biographical Memoirs: Alison Frantz|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|date=June 2000|volume=144|issue=2|pages=215–216|url=http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Frantz.pdf|accessdate=15 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102094950/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Frantz.pdf|archive-date=2013-11-02|url-status=dead}}</ref> |
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After the end of the war, the ACSCA was used as a conduit for US policy in Greece, particularly for the implementation of the [[Marshall Plan]] of economic aid.{{sfn|Davis|2013|p=35}} In April 1946, alongside Blegen, Frantz was appointed to the Allied Mission for Observing the Greek Elections, an organization of observers and statisticians sent by Britain, France and the United States to ensure the fairness of [[1946 Greek legislative election|that year's elections]], held on 31 March, to the [[Hellenic Parliament]].{{Sfn|Prévost|2018}} Between 1946 and 1949 she served as [[cultural attaché]] of the US embassy in Athens, following Blegen in the role.{{refn|{{harvnb|Vogeikoff-Brogan|2013}}; {{harvnb|Davis|2013|p=35}}. Hatzivassiliou erroneously states that she assumed the role in 1948.{{sfn|Hatzivassiliou|2014|p=101}}}} In this capacity, she established the [[Fulbright Program]] in Greece, which sent ten scholars and eight senior research fellows to the ASCSA in 1949.{{sfnm|1a1=McCredie|1y=2000|1pages=215–216|2a1=Davis|2y=2013|2p=35}} |
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== Main contribution == |
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⚫ | Her main contribution in the field of archaeology and history of the Athenian Agora was that she insisted on a diachronic exploration of archaeological sites. In the case of the Athenian Agora excavations, she focused her interest in recording and studying the post-classical periods, especially Late Antiquity and Byzantium.<ref name=McCredie2/> She was one of the first scholars to publish on the Byzantine and Ottoman collection of finds from the Agora. She also worked closely with [[John Travlos]] to restore the Church of the [[Church of the Holy Apostles, Athens|Holy Apostles]], the only Byzantine monument still standing today in the Athenian Agora. |
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== Later life == |
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⚫ | As a photographer, Frantz captured with her camera 25 years (1939–64) of discoveries, people and archaeological life in the Athenian Agora. Her talent for archaeological photography was widely recognized and she traveled all around the Mediterranean, photographing archaeological sites and especially Greek sculpture. She is most famous for her photographs of the [[Parthenon Frieze|Parthenon frieze]] and of the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. |
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Between 1954 and 1957,{{Sfn|Dumont|2020|pp=89–106}} Frantz supervised the restoration of the eleventh-century [[Church of the Holy Apostles, Athens|Church of the Holy Apostles]], the only surviving Byzantine building in the Agora.{{Refn|{{harvnb|Frantz|1971|p=1}}. Frantz dated the church as probably tenth-century; for more recent assessments of an eleventh-century date, see {{harvnb|Rees|2000|p=153}} and {{harvnb|Kaldellis|2009|p=114}}.}} She remained the official photographer of the Agora excavations until 1964.{{Sfn|Elliott|1995|p=26}} She left the project to return to live in Princeton, and focused her work on collaborating on books with other archaeologists. This included travelling to [[Olympia, Greece|Olympia]] with the British archaeologist [[Bernard Ashmole]], where she photographed the sculptures of the [[Temple of Zeus, Olympia|Temple of Zeus]].{{Sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=64}} |
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She suffered a [[stroke]] in 1994, which affected her speech and movement.{{Sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=58}} On January 27, 1995, she was struck by a truck near her home in Princeton; she died on February 1 at the [[Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital]] in [[New Brunswick, New Jersey|New Brunswick]].{{Sfn|Elliott|1995|p=26}} |
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== Photographic archive == |
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The archive of Frantz's negatives is kept at the American School of Classical Studies<ref name=ASCA>{{cite web|last=ASCA|title=Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, 1881-1940|url=http://www.ascsa.net/research?q=collection%3AFrantz;v=icons}}</ref> and at Princeton University.<ref name=Princeton>{{cite web|last=Princeton University|title=Alison Frantz Papers|url=http://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/C0772|accessdate=15 October 2013}}</ref> |
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== Assessment and legacy == |
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An obituary in [[The New York Times|''The'' ''New York Times'']] described Frantz as "one of the foremost archaeological photographers of Greek sites and antiquities".{{Sfn|Elliott|1995|p=26}} In 2005, the archaeologist John K. Papadopoulos listed her among the foremost photographers of ancient Greek monuments.{{Sfn|Papadopoulos|2005|p=213}} John Camp, who directed the Agora excavations, was quoted shortly before Frantz's death as saying "when one thinks of the great photos of the past fifty years, the name of a single individual comes to mind – Alison Franz".{{Sfn|Szegedy-Maszak|1995|p=58}} |
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⚫ | Her main contribution in the field of archaeology and history of the Athenian Agora was that she insisted on a diachronic exploration of archaeological sites. In the case of the Athenian Agora excavations, she focused her interest in recording and studying the post-classical periods, especially Late Antiquity and Byzantium.<ref name="McCredie2" /> She was one of the first scholars to publish on the Byzantine and Ottoman collection of finds from the Agora. She also worked closely with [[John Travlos]] to restore the Church of the [[Church of the Holy Apostles, Athens|Holy Apostles]], the only Byzantine monument still standing today in the Athenian Agora. |
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⚫ | As a photographer, Frantz captured with her camera 25 years (1939–64) of discoveries, people and archaeological life in the Athenian Agora. Her talent for archaeological photography was widely recognized and she traveled all around the Mediterranean, photographing archaeological sites and especially Greek sculpture. She is most famous for her photographs of the [[Parthenon Frieze|Parthenon frieze]] and of the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.{{sfn|Rotroff|2006|page=52}} The archive of Frantz's negatives is kept at the American School of Classical Studies{{refn|name="ASCSACollection"|1={{cite web|title=Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, 1881{{endash}}1940|url=http://www.ascsa.net/research?q=collection%3AFrantz;v=icons}}}} and at Princeton University.{{refn|name="Princeton"|{{cite web|title=Alison Frantz Papers|url=http://findingaids.princeton.edu/collections/C0772|accessdate=15 October 2013}}}} |
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== Selected publications == |
== Selected publications == |
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⚫ | * {{cite book |author-last=Frantz |author-first=Alison |date=1971 |title=The Church of the Holy Apostles |series=Athenian Agora |volume=XX |place=Princeton |publisher=The American School of Classical Studies at Athens |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_XX.pdf |access-date=2024-01-20 |
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=== As photographer === |
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⚫ | * {{cite book |author-last=Frantz |author-first=Alison |author-mask=1 |date=1988 |title=Late Antiquity A.D. 267–700 |series=Athenian Agora |volume=XXIV |place=Princeton |publisher=The American School of Classical Studies at Athens |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_XXIV.pdf |access-date=2024-01-20 |ref=none |via=American School of Classical Studies at Athens}} |
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* {{Cite book |last=Lang |first=Mabel L. |title=The Athenian Citizen: Democracy in the Athenian Agora |date=1960 |publisher=American School of Classical Studies at Athens |series=Excavations of the Athenian Agora |volume=IV |location=Princeton |oclc=992429 |ref=none}} |
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=== As author === |
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* {{Cite journal |last=Frantz |first=Alison |date=1950 |title=Truth Before Beauty: Or, The Incompleat Photographer |journal=Archaeology |volume=3 |issue=4 |pages=202{{ndash}}214 |jstor=41662414 |ref=none}} |
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⚫ | * {{cite book |author-last=Frantz |author-first=Alison |date=1971 |title=The Church of the Holy Apostles |series=Excavations of the Athenian Agora |volume=XX |place=Princeton |publisher=The American School of Classical Studies at Athens |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_XX.pdf |access-date=2024-01-20 |via=American School of Classical Studies at Athens |author-mask=1}} |
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⚫ | * {{cite book |author-last=Frantz |author-first=Alison |author-mask=1 |date=1988 |title=Late Antiquity A.D. 267–700 |series=Excavations of the Athenian Agora |volume=XXIV |place=Princeton |publisher=The American School of Classical Studies at Athens |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/oa_ebooks/oa_agora/Agora_XXIV.pdf |access-date=2024-01-20 |ref=none |via=American School of Classical Studies at Athens}} |
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== References == |
== References == |
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{{reflist}} |
{{reflist|20em|indent=yes}} |
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==Works cited== |
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{{refbegin|30em|indent=yes}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Allen |first=Susan Heuck |year=2011 |title=Classical Spies: American Archaeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=9780472035397 |place=Ann Arbor}} |
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* {{cite journal| last=Davis| first=Jack| author-link=Jack L. Davis| year=2013| title=The American School of Classical Studies and the Politics of Volunteerism| journal=Hesperia| volume=82| number=1| pages=15–48| jstor=10.2972/hesperia.82.1.0015}} |
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* {{cite book| last=Dumont| first=Sylvie| year=2020| title=Vrysaki: A Neighborhood Lost in Search of the Athenian Agora| publisher=The American School of Classical Studies at Athens| place=Princeton| isbn=9780876619698}} |
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* {{cite newspaper| last=Elliott| first=J. Michael| date=1995-02-10| title=Alison Frantz, 91, Site Photographer at Excavations| newspaper=The New York Times| at=Section A, p. 26| url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/10/obituaries/alison-frantz-91-site-photographer-at-excavations.html| access-date=2024-01-21}} |
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* {{cite journal| last=Hatzivassiliou| first=Evanthis| year=2014| title=Shallow Waves and Deeper Currents: The U.S. Experience of Greece, 1947–1961. Policies, Historicity, and the Cultural Dimension| journal=Diplomatic History| volume=38| number=1| doi=10.1093/dh/dht088| pages=83–110}} |
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* {{cite book| last=Kaldellis| first=Anthony| author-link=Anthony Kaldellis| year=2009| title=The Christian Parthenon: Classicism and Pilgrimage in Byzantine Athens| publisher=Cambridge University Press| place=Cambridge| isbn=9780521882286}} |
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* {{cite journal| last=Lalaki| first=Despina| year=2013| title=Soldiers of Science—Agents of Culture: American Archaeologists in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)| journal=Hesperia| volume=82| number=1| pages=179–202| jstor=10.2972/hesperia.82.1.0179}} |
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⚫ | * {{cite journal|last=McCredie|first=James R.|title=Alison Frantz|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|date=June 2000|volume=144|issue=2|pages=213–217 |url=http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Frantz.pdf|accessdate=15 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102094950/http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/Frantz.pdf|archive-date=2013-11-02|url-status=dead|jstor=1515634}} |
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* {{cite book| last=Meritt| first=Benjamin D.| author-link=Benjamin Dean Meritt| year=1943| chapter=Report of the Chairman of the Committee on Publications| title=American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Sixty-Second Annual Report, 1942–1943| pages=33–39| url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/uploads/media/AR_62_1942-43_reduced.pdf| access-date=2024-01-21| via=American School of Classical Studies at Athens}} |
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* {{cite book| last=Papadopoulos| first=John K.| year=2005| chapter=Antiquity Depicted| title=Antiquity and Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites| editor-last1=Lyons| editor-first1=Claire L.| editor-last2=Papadopoulos| editor-first2=John K.| editor-last3=Stewart| editor-first3=Lindsey S.| editor-last4=Szegedy-Maszak| editor-first4=Andrew| publisher=J. Paul Getty Museum| place=Los Angeles | pages=104–147| isbn=9780892368051| url=https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5Qaewc3rZ5sZwyLIeqhKWzhuIE5HARAvaKlCcKd9z0EUQbeNzMuhxftr5Z_MXR2LdQR891NqqQ33372ws_-g4LeeDzoHrM1Q91ufxlYfcZMcgnYshlOEY6JrBbCTb2xnMudzcEd_4wzXHVFDsT8P6oXGMBbWr3GXRIMyB79SlyKn0N9YLaJZ3-KPFulyYphRcFuUOxxK-6t2O1NIxpB1CrqHY7BFVsF1zHO0j4_SjySF97fCOkEZAQOrOmXx6aUlmGnDDGAnOg5Z1MqfAyALoosdVexoAxg| access-date=2024-01-21}} |
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* {{cite journal| last=Prévost| first=Jean-Guy| year=2018| title=The 1946 Allied Mission to Observe Greek Elections| journal=Histoire & mesure| volume=33| issue=2| url=http://journals.openedition.org/histoiremesure/8146| access-date=2024-01-21| doi=10.4000/histoiremesure.8146| doi-access=free}} <!-- Online edition; not paginated. --> |
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* {{cite book| last=Rees |first=Elizabeth| year=2000| title=Archaeology and the Early Church in Southern Greece| publisher=Oxbow Books| place=Oxford| isbn=9781789255782}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Rotroff|first=Susan|year=2006| title=Women in the Athenian Agora|url=https://archive.org/details/womenathenianago00lamb|url-access=limited|year=2006|publisher=American School of Classical Studies at Athens|location=Athens|isbn=9780876616444}} |
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* {{cite journal| last=Szegedy-Maszak| first=Andrew| year=1995| title=Portrait of a Purist| journal=Archaeology| volume=48| number=1| pages=58–64| jstor=41766546}} |
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* {{cite journal| last=Szymczak| first=Robert| year=1999| title=Uneasy Observers: The OSS Foreign Nationalities Branch and Perceptions of Polish Nationalism in the United States during World War II| journal=Polish American Studies| volume=56| number=1| pages=7–73| jstor=20148555}} |
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* {{Cite web |last=Vogeikoff-Brogan |first=Natalia |date=2013-07-16 |title=The Not-So-Shallow Waves of Cold War Cultural Diplomacy |url=https://nataliavogeikoff.com/2013/07/16/the-not-so-shallow-waves-of-cold-war-cultural-diplomacy/ |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=From the Archivist's Notebook}} |
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* {{cite book|last1=Vogeikoff-Brogan| first1=Natalia| year=2015|chapter=The Life of Carl W. Blegen from a Grass Roots Persepective|title=Carl Blegen: Personal and Archaeological Narratives| editor-last1=Vogeikoff-Brogan|editor-first1=Natalia|editor-last2=Davis|editor-first2=Jack|editor-last3=Florou|editor-first3=Vasiliki|publisher=Lockwood Press|place=Atlanta|isbn=9781937040239|pages=17–38}} |
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{{refend}} |
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== Further reading == |
== Further reading == |
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* {{Cite web |date=2023-07-23 |title=Alison Frantz Honored in Loring Hall |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/news/newsDetails/alison-frantz-honored-in-loring-hall |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=American School of Classical Studies at Athens |ref=none}} |
* {{Cite web |date=2023-07-23 |title=Alison Frantz Honored in Loring Hall |url=https://www.ascsa.edu.gr/news/newsDetails/alison-frantz-honored-in-loring-hall |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=American School of Classical Studies at Athens |ref=none}} |
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* {{Cite journal |last= |
* {{Cite journal |last=Papalexandrou |first=Amy |last2=Mauzy |first2=Marie |date=2003 |title=The Photographs of Alison Frantz: Revealing Antiquity through the Lens |journal=History of Photography |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=130–143 |doi=10.1080/03087298.2003.10443264 |ref=none |doi-access=free}} |
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* {{Cite journal |last=Papalexandrou |first=Amy |last2=Mauzy |first2=Marie |date=2003 |title=The Photographs of Alison Frantz: Revealing Antiquity through the Lens |journal=History of Photography |volume=27 |issue=2 |pages=130{{ndash}}143 |doi=10.1080/03087298.2003.10443264 |ref=none |doi-access=free}} |
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* {{Cite web |last=Vogeikoff-Brogan |first=Natalia |date=2019-08-05 |title=To Live Alone and Like It: Women and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Between the Wars |url=https://nataliavogeikoff.com/2019/08/05/to-live-alone-and-like-it-women-and-the-american-school-of-classical-studies-at-athens-between-the-wars/ |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=From the Archivist's Notebook |ref=none}} |
* {{Cite web |last=Vogeikoff-Brogan |first=Natalia |date=2019-08-05 |title=To Live Alone and Like It: Women and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Between the Wars |url=https://nataliavogeikoff.com/2019/08/05/to-live-alone-and-like-it-women-and-the-american-school-of-classical-studies-at-athens-between-the-wars/ |access-date=2024-01-20 |website=From the Archivist's Notebook |ref=none}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
{{Authority control}} |
Revision as of 22:06, 21 January 2024
Alison Frantz | |
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Born | Mary Alison Frantz September 27, 1903 Duluth, Minnesota |
Died | February 1, 1995 Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, New Jersey | (aged 91)
Academic background | |
Education | |
Academic work | |
Institutions |
Mary Alison Frantz (27 September 1903 – 1 February 1995) was an archaeological photographer and a Byzantine scholar. With degrees in Classical and Byzantine Studies, she traveled to Greece where she joined the Athenian Agora Excavations. She was the Agora's official photographer from 1939 until 1964 and is especially renowned for her photographs of Greek sculpture. As an archaeologist, she contributed to a better understanding and appreciation of the post-classical layers of the Agora excavations with publications on the Byzantine and Ottoman material.
Early life and education
Mary Alison Frantz[1] was born on 27 September 1903 in Duluth, Minnesota, the youngest of five children.[2] Her father, a newspaper publisher, died of pneumonia soon afterwards;[4] her Scottish mother moved the family to Edinburgh. Frantz received her first camera there, as a gift from her brother. After two years, the family returned to the United States. Her mother settled the family in Princeton: Frantz later credited this decision to the proximity of Princeton University, though she said that this was intended "for [her] brothers, of course".[3]
Frantz graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics from Smith College, a women's liberal arts college, in 1924.[5] She subsequently spent a year as a fellow of the American Academy in Rome,[3] during which she made her first visit to Greece, later in 1924.[6] Between 1927 and 1929, she worked at Princeton University for the historian Charles Rufus Morey, researching for his Index of Christian Art.[7] In 1929, she was appointed as a fellow of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.[3] She continued her graduate studies at Columbia University, where she focused on the study of the Byzantine period.[5]
Early career
Frantz started her career in the Athenian Agora Excavations in January 1934,[8] as an assistant of Lucy Talcott in the Record Department. Frantz had been fascinated by photography from a young age, seeing her brother developing photographs in his dark room, and soon she turned to archaeological photography.[9] She started helping Herman Wagner, the official photographer of the Agora and by 1939 she became the official photographer. Just before the Second World War, Frantz was charged with the task to photograph in two days more than six hundred tablets of Linear B, discovered by the famous American archaeologists Carl Blegen in the Mycenaean palace of Pylos. It was largely these photographs that facilitated the decipherment of the Linear B script by Michael Ventris.[10]
Second World War and aftermath
In the summer of 1941, Frantz and Rodney Young, another archaeologist at the ASCSA, received a grant of $1,000 (equivalent to $20,715 in 2023) to compile an index of the first ten volumes of Hesperia, the school's academic journal. Young joined the Office of Strategic Services later that year; Frantz succeeded in creating a set of alphabetic index cards covering almost the whole index before herself joining the OSS in the summer of 1942.[11] They were among several British and American archaeologists, including Carl Blegen, Benjamin Meritt, T. Leslie Shear and the British Alan Wace, to serve in Allied intelligence services in Greece.[12] Frantz was recommended to the OSS by Meritt, and worked as Blegen's assistant: he had been made head of the Greek section of the organization's Foreign Nationalities Branch (FNB), based in Washington, D.C. The FNB was primarily tasked with interviewing people resident in the United States from European and Mediterranean ethic groups, and would interview and record their views on the politics and situation of their native countries. Frantz's official title was Junior Social Science Analyst; her work primarily focused on interviewing political exiles from Nazi-occupied Europe.[13] Other American archaeologists in the FNB included Meritt and Shear.[14]
After the end of the war, the ACSCA was used as a conduit for US policy in Greece, particularly for the implementation of the Marshall Plan of economic aid.[15] In April 1946, alongside Blegen, Frantz was appointed to the Allied Mission for Observing the Greek Elections, an organization of observers and statisticians sent by Britain, France and the United States to ensure the fairness of that year's elections, held on 31 March, to the Hellenic Parliament.[16] Between 1946 and 1949 she served as cultural attaché of the US embassy in Athens, following Blegen in the role.[18] In this capacity, she established the Fulbright Program in Greece, which sent ten scholars and eight senior research fellows to the ASCSA in 1949.[19]
Later life
Between 1954 and 1957,[20] Frantz supervised the restoration of the eleventh-century Church of the Holy Apostles, the only surviving Byzantine building in the Agora.[21] She remained the official photographer of the Agora excavations until 1964.[6] She left the project to return to live in Princeton, and focused her work on collaborating on books with other archaeologists. This included travelling to Olympia with the British archaeologist Bernard Ashmole, where she photographed the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus.[22]
She suffered a stroke in 1994, which affected her speech and movement.[23] On January 27, 1995, she was struck by a truck near her home in Princeton; she died on February 1 at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.[6]
Assessment and legacy
An obituary in The New York Times described Frantz as "one of the foremost archaeological photographers of Greek sites and antiquities".[6] In 2005, the archaeologist John K. Papadopoulos listed her among the foremost photographers of ancient Greek monuments.[24] John Camp, who directed the Agora excavations, was quoted shortly before Frantz's death as saying "when one thinks of the great photos of the past fifty years, the name of a single individual comes to mind – Alison Franz".[23]
Her main contribution in the field of archaeology and history of the Athenian Agora was that she insisted on a diachronic exploration of archaeological sites. In the case of the Athenian Agora excavations, she focused her interest in recording and studying the post-classical periods, especially Late Antiquity and Byzantium.[25] She was one of the first scholars to publish on the Byzantine and Ottoman collection of finds from the Agora. She also worked closely with John Travlos to restore the Church of the Holy Apostles, the only Byzantine monument still standing today in the Athenian Agora.
As a photographer, Frantz captured with her camera 25 years (1939–64) of discoveries, people and archaeological life in the Athenian Agora. Her talent for archaeological photography was widely recognized and she traveled all around the Mediterranean, photographing archaeological sites and especially Greek sculpture. She is most famous for her photographs of the Parthenon frieze and of the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia.[26] The archive of Frantz's negatives is kept at the American School of Classical Studies[27] and at Princeton University.[28]
Selected publications
As photographer
- Lang, Mabel L. (1960). The Athenian Citizen: Democracy in the Athenian Agora. Excavations of the Athenian Agora. Vol. IV. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. OCLC 992429.
As author
- Frantz, Alison (1950). "Truth Before Beauty: Or, The Incompleat Photographer". Archaeology. 3 (4): 202–214. JSTOR 41662414.
- — (1971). The Church of the Holy Apostles (PDF). Excavations of the Athenian Agora. Vol. XX. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Retrieved January 20, 2024 – via American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
- — (1988). Late Antiquity A.D. 267–700 (PDF). Excavations of the Athenian Agora. Vol. XXIV. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Retrieved January 20, 2024 – via American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
References
- ^ Lalaki 2013, p. 184.
- ^ McCredie 2000; Szegedy-Maszak 1995, p. 62.
- ^ a b c d Szegedy-Maszak 1995, p. 62.
- ^ McCredie 2000, p. 213. McCredie states that he died when Frantz was three years old; Szegedy-Maszak's profile of Frantz states that she was one.[3]
- ^ a b McCredie 2000, p. 214.
- ^ a b c d Elliott 1995, p. 26.
- ^ McCredie 2000, p. 214; Szegedy-Maszak 1995, p. 62.
- ^ "Announcements". The Smith Alumnae Quarterly. Alumnae Association of Smith College. February 1934. p. 330. Retrieved January 21, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Rotroff 2006, p. 51.
- ^ McCredie 2000, p. 215.
- ^ Meritt 1943, p. 33.
- ^ McCredie 2000, pp. 215–216; Vogeikoff-Brogan 2015, p. 29. For Wace, see Allen 2011, p. 20. For the name of the Foreign Nationalities Branch, see Lelaki 2013, p. 184
- ^ Lelaki 2013, p. 184 . On the establishment and aims of the FNB, see Szymczak 1999.
- ^ Vogeikoff-Brogan 2015, p. 29.
- ^ Davis 2013, p. 35.
- ^ Prévost 2018.
- ^ Hatzivassiliou 2014, p. 101.
- ^ Vogeikoff-Brogan 2013; Davis 2013, p. 35. Hatzivassiliou erroneously states that she assumed the role in 1948.[17]
- ^ McCredie 2000; Davis 2013, p. 35.
- ^ Dumont 2020, pp. 89–106.
- ^ Frantz 1971, p. 1. Frantz dated the church as probably tenth-century; for more recent assessments of an eleventh-century date, see Rees 2000, p. 153 and Kaldellis 2009, p. 114.
- ^ Szegedy-Maszak 1995, p. 64.
- ^ a b Szegedy-Maszak 1995, p. 58.
- ^ Papadopoulos 2005, p. 213.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
McCredie2
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Rotroff 2006, p. 52.
- ^ "Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, 1881–1940".
- ^ "Alison Frantz Papers". Retrieved October 15, 2013.
Works cited
- Allen, Susan Heuck (2011). Classical Spies: American Archaeologists with the OSS in World War II Greece. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472035397.
- Davis, Jack (2013). "The American School of Classical Studies and the Politics of Volunteerism". Hesperia. 82 (1): 15–48. JSTOR 10.2972/hesperia.82.1.0015.
- Dumont, Sylvie (2020). Vrysaki: A Neighborhood Lost in Search of the Athenian Agora. Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 9780876619698.
- Elliott, J. Michael (February 10, 1995). "Alison Frantz, 91, Site Photographer at Excavations". The New York Times. Section A, p. 26. Retrieved January 21, 2024.
- Hatzivassiliou, Evanthis (2014). "Shallow Waves and Deeper Currents: The U.S. Experience of Greece, 1947–1961. Policies, Historicity, and the Cultural Dimension". Diplomatic History. 38 (1): 83–110. doi:10.1093/dh/dht088.
- Kaldellis, Anthony (2009). The Christian Parthenon: Classicism and Pilgrimage in Byzantine Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521882286.
- Lalaki, Despina (2013). "Soldiers of Science—Agents of Culture: American Archaeologists in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)". Hesperia. 82 (1): 179–202. JSTOR 10.2972/hesperia.82.1.0179.
- McCredie, James R. (June 2000). "Alison Frantz" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 144 (2): 213–217. JSTOR 1515634. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 2, 2013. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
- Meritt, Benjamin D. (1943). "Report of the Chairman of the Committee on Publications". American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Sixty-Second Annual Report, 1942–1943 (PDF). pp. 33–39. Retrieved January 21, 2024 – via American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
- Papadopoulos, John K. (2005). "Antiquity Depicted". In Lyons, Claire L.; Papadopoulos, John K.; Stewart, Lindsey S.; Szegedy-Maszak, Andrew (eds.). Antiquity and Photography: Early Views of Ancient Mediterranean Sites. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. pp. 104–147. ISBN 9780892368051. Retrieved January 21, 2024.
- Prévost, Jean-Guy (2018). "The 1946 Allied Mission to Observe Greek Elections". Histoire & mesure. 33 (2). doi:10.4000/histoiremesure.8146. Retrieved January 21, 2024.
- Rees, Elizabeth (2000). Archaeology and the Early Church in Southern Greece. Oxford: Oxbow Books. ISBN 9781789255782.
- Rotroff, Susan (2006). Women in the Athenian Agora. Athens: American School of Classical Studies at Athens. ISBN 9780876616444.
- Szegedy-Maszak, Andrew (1995). "Portrait of a Purist". Archaeology. 48 (1): 58–64. JSTOR 41766546.
- Szymczak, Robert (1999). "Uneasy Observers: The OSS Foreign Nationalities Branch and Perceptions of Polish Nationalism in the United States during World War II". Polish American Studies. 56 (1): 7–73. JSTOR 20148555.
- Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia (July 16, 2013). "The Not-So-Shallow Waves of Cold War Cultural Diplomacy". From the Archivist's Notebook. Retrieved January 20, 2024.
- Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia (2015). "The Life of Carl W. Blegen from a Grass Roots Persepective". In Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia; Davis, Jack; Florou, Vasiliki (eds.). Carl Blegen: Personal and Archaeological Narratives. Atlanta: Lockwood Press. pp. 17–38. ISBN 9781937040239.
Further reading
- "Alison Frantz Honored in Loring Hall". American School of Classical Studies at Athens. July 23, 2023. Retrieved January 20, 2024.
- Papalexandrou, Amy; Mauzy, Marie (2003). "The Photographs of Alison Frantz: Revealing Antiquity through the Lens". History of Photography. 27 (2): 130–143. doi:10.1080/03087298.2003.10443264.
- Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia (August 5, 2019). "To Live Alone and Like It: Women and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens Between the Wars". From the Archivist's Notebook. Retrieved January 20, 2024.