Women in Photojournalism: Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White’s favorite self-portrait, made with the U.S. 8th Air Force in 1943.
October 21, 2022
Background
Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) is a world-renowned American photojournalist. She captured American Industrialization, India’s fight for independence, the Korean war, the liberation of concentration camps, and so much more. She photographed Joseph Stalin, Pope Pius XII, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill who were influential figures in 20th-century history. Through her work, Americans were able to visualize international and domestic affairs through her carefully crafted artistic lens.
Life
Margaret was born in 1904 in New York and studied at the University of Michigan, Case Western University, Colombia, and Cornell. She first came across a camera when her mother bought her a $20 cracked camera and she took a photography course to learn the basics of photography. She then fell in love with photography and first worked in a studio in Cleveland where she captured industrialization in the US. She was then scouted to work for Life magazine which sent her to the Soviet Union to capture Soviet Industrialization. She continued her career by photographing the liberation of Erla and Buchenwald Natzi concentration camps, Gandhi’s independence movement, South African violence, the German invasion of Moscow, the German raid on the Kremlin, and the Korean War. She began developing Parkinson’s disease and passed away on August 27, 1971, leaving a lasting legacy.
Legacy
As the first woman to be allowed in combat WWII zones, she paved the way for future women in the photojournalism space. She was able to artistically communicate with the American public about international events such as WWII, the Cold War, the Indian Independence movement, and African turmoil. She also artistically photographed the rising industrial society in the United States. She also was the first female to photograph for Life magazine, the first photographer of Fortune, and the first Western photographer to photograph in the USSR. She opened the floor for other female photographers to continue to be respected and recognized in this newly developing field of photography.
Quote
“Photography is a very subtle thing. You must let the camera take you by the hand, as it were, and lead you into your subject.”
