Caroline Valenta was the first woman employed by the Houston Post as a photojournalist. Unlike many women entering the field of photojournalism, Valenta was treated as an equal by her male peers, and she was called upon to shoot the same range of assignments in the Houston area. On the morning of April 16, 1947, a fire aboard the SS Grandcamp, docked in Texas City’s port, detonated the ship’s cargo of ammonium nitrate, causing the deadliest industrial accident in US history and claiming the lives of at least 581 people. Valenta’s unflinching photographs of the disaster earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination.