The 19th-century photographer Julia Margaret Cameron has long been celebrated for her pioneering contributions to the medium. Less well known is her younger sister Mia Jackson. But that could change thanks to the discovery of an exceptionally rare Victorian self-portrait. "It's strikingly modern," says Marta Weiss, photography curator at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, which recently acquired the image. The photograph is thought to have been made in the late 1850s and was discovered by Jackson's descendants inside an envelope.

When the utopian ideals of the American Arts and Crafts movement began to splinter against the hard realities of a growing post-war industrial society, a fascinating cultural initiative was initiated by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Disheartened by the machine age but still yearning for a lasting connection to the handmade, she brought together a group of makers who redirected their focus toward a pastoral view of America’s colonial past. By 1926, Val-Kill Industries—a bold p...