Djuna Barnes and unidentified fireman, dangling from a rope beside a building,

Djuna Barnes and unidentified fireman, dangling from a rope beside a building, October 1914. Gelatin silver photograph. Djuna Barnes Papers, Special Collections, University of Maryland Libraries

This photograph was taken to accompany “My Adventures Being Rescued,” an article that recounts how Barnes attended a firefighters’ training session and played at being saved three times. While Barnes’s instinct to insert herself into her chosen stories gave her ample opportunity to showcase her courage and evocative prose, it also carried real danger, as demonstrated when a homemade airplane she was to ride in crashed, killing all those aboard.

Via: Brooklyn Museum > Newspaper Fiction: The New York Journalism of Djuna Barnes, 1913–1919