Vivian Maier

In 2007, an amateur historian by the name of John Maloof bought 30,000 negatives on a hunch.  They happened to be the photographic work of Vivian Maier, a lifelong nanny in Chicago who died in 2009 at age 83.  She is posthumously being lauded as one of the first street photographers, and her work is being compared to the likes of Brassai & Diane Arbus.  Maloof has edited a book of her photography called Vivian Maier: Street Photographer.