From 1895 to 1903, photographers Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg operated a commercial studio in the Norwegian town of Horten.

Høeg was an active and outspoken suffragist, and used the studio as a meeting place for fellow activists and women interested in the suffrage movement. (Women won the right to vote in Norway in 1913.)

More than three decades after Høeg’s death in 1949, a box of the partners' glass plate negatives marked “private” was discovered on a farm where they once lived.

Now in the collection of the Preus Museum, the photos offer a remarkable glimpse into the photographers’ private gender-bending experiments.

Short-haired Høeg dons numerous men’s outfits, posing in alternately serious and playful tableaux, joined occasionally by Berg and their dog Tuss.

Høeg’s defiant suffragist spirit shines through the images, her costume choices allowing her to occupy traditionally male roles and personas as she campaigns for women’s right to an equal place in society.