Stuart witnessed a decisive period in southern Africa's history. With her camera she recorded important events for Libertas and other publications. One of her many assignments was the 1947 visit of King George VI of England, Queen Elizabeth and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to the British protectorates of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Basutoland (now Lesotho) and Swaziland. While traveling with the press corps Stuart used her free time to photograph the peoples in the protectorates, creating some of her finest work.
In 1910 the Union of South Africa became a self-governing British dominion, while Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland remained under British control. Within the borders of the Union of South Africa lived the black South African population, the Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch settlers), descendants of British immigrants and people whose forebears had been brought from India and the Indonesian islands as convicts, slaves and laborers. Many Afrikaners were ardent nationalists advocating segregationist policies and competed with the British for political and economic power.
The ideology of segregation justified the discrimination and economic exploitation of Africans and the creation of a labor system that led to their dislocation and impoverishment. Africans in rural areas were restricted to reserves, their land seized by white farmers. Forced to seek employment, Africans--including many from the British protectorates--signed up as laborers in South Africa's mines and cities. Men and an increasing number of women and children came to the cities and lived in segregated areas called locations or townships.
In 1939 South Africa entered World War II (1939-45) as an ally of Great Britain fighting Germany. The land yielded raw materials and goods for the war effort and South African troops fought in campaigns in North Africa and Europe as early as 1940. Stuart became the first South African woman to be accredited as a war correspondent by the South African director of Military Intelligence. In 1944 she covered the war in Egypt, Italy and France for Libertas, returning to South Africa in 1945.
To the viewer, Stuart's most memorable work seems to express her sentiment about the politics of the past and new governments. In 1948, the seminal novel Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton drew worldwide attention to the desperate situation of many people in southern Africa. In the novel, the Reverend Stephen Kumalo, a minister from a small town in Natal, sets out to search for his lost son in Johannesburg, the "Golden City." The story dramatically exposes the tragic fate many displaced Africans suffered under segregation and early apartheid, and pleads for more humane race relations. Its message deeply touched Stuart and other South African liberals.
Stuart, on assignment for an American magazine, visited Paton in Anerley, Natal, in February 1949. Together they traveled to the places he had written about in his novel. The photographer created a portfolio of evocative images that expressed in visual terms the powerful sentiments that inspired Paton's writing. In 1985, the National Museum of African Art displayed images from this portfolio in the exhibition Go Well, My Child.