Gertrude Käsebier was born Gertrude Stanton on May 18, 1852, in Des Moines, Iowa, to John W. Stanton and Muncy Boone Stanton. In 1864, after the sudden death of her father, John Stanton, Gertrude, and her family moved to Brooklyn, New York. Gertrude lived in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with her grandmother from 1866 to 1870, while she attended the Bethlehem Female Seminary. She married Eduard Käsebier on May 18, 1874, in Brooklyn, New York. They had three children: Frederick William, Gertrude Elizabeth, and Hermine Mathilde. The family moved to New Jersey in 1884. Gertrude was unhappy with her marriage, but divorce was considered scandalous so the two remained married but lived separate lives from 1880 onward. Eduard continued to support her financially when she began to attend art school at 37. In 1889, she moved her family back to Brooklyn to attend the Pratt Institute of Art and Design. While there, she learned about the Arts and Crafts movement and the theories of Friedrich Frobel about the importance of motherhood in child development. Gertrude spent several weeks in 1894 studying the chemistry of photography in Germany and then spent the rest of the year in France studying under the American painter Frank DuMond. After returning to Brooklyn, Gertrude became an assistant to Brooklyn portrait photographer Samuel H. Lifshey. She went on to exhibit her work at the Boston Camera Club, the Pratt Institute, and the Photographic Society of Philadelphia. Gertrude also lectured on her work and encouraged women to pursue photography as a career. Gertrude became prolific in her trade and garnered numerous accomplishments. Salons featured her work as well as print issues of Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Work. She went on to join the Professional Photographers of New York in May 1906. Gertrude followed her course and established the Women's Professional Photographers Association of America; Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, Gertrude Käsebier continued to expand her portrait business where her daughter Hermine Turner joined her. She gave up photography in 1929 and died on October 12, 1934, in New York, New York at the home of her daughter, Hermine. The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum inducted Gertrude Käsebier in 1979.