She ‘Shot’ Her Way to Success: How China’s Empress Dowager Ci Xi Launched a Photographer’s Trailblazing Career

Debutante, wife, mother, trailblazing freelance photographer: Patricia O'Meara Robbins was one of a kind, making her own way through the turbulent world of the mid-twentieth century from China through Pearl Harbor, Hollywood and post-war Europe. Beginning in 1933, at the age of 22, when she found herself in old imperial China, Pat Robbins blazed a trail for other female photographers who would follow her. She documented the pre-war Orient and the U.S. Asiatic Fleet; the aftermath of Parl Harbor; Los Angeles high society in Hollywood’s Golden Age ; postwar Europe and occupied Germany; and the mid-century Washington scene. This lavishly illustrated personal history traces the life, times, career and family of a bold, creative woman, ahead of her time in many ways.