Maynard Owen Williams, born 1888 and died 1963, became the first National Geographic foreign correspondent in 1919. In his own words a camera-coolie and a roughneck, Williams pioneered the field of travel photography. Over the course of his career, he witnessed the Russian Revolution, the public opening of the tomb of King Tut in 1923, went to the Artic in 1925, and crossed Asia by automobile in the 1930s. He was a regular contributor to National Geographic Magazine from the early 1920s to the late 1940s. His career began with teaching in Beirut and then worked as a Baptist missionary teacher in Hangchow, China. Hired in 1919 as the Society's first field correspondent, Williams, the first chief of the foreign editorial staff, wrote and photographed some hundred stories before his 1953 retirement.