Bourke-White, Margaret

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BOURKE-WHITE, Margaret

Born 14 June 1904, New York, New York; died 27 August 1971 Daughter of Joseph White and Minnie E. Bourke; married

Everett Chapman, 1924; Erskine Caldwell, 1939

Margaret Bourke-White attended several universities before receiving her degree in biology from Cornell in 1927. The death of her father during her senior year forced her to earn her own way, so she did photo work for the Cornell Alumni News. After graduation she moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and began a professional career, not in biology, but in photography. She began to make a name for herself as an industrial photographer at a time when the U.S. was falling in love with the machine. She helped develop the techniques needed for dark/high intensity light situations such as those found in foundaries. In the spring of 1929 Henry Luce asked Bourke-White to work as an associate editor for the yet-unborn Fortune magazine. The magazine would serve as an ideal vehicle for Bourke-White's adulation of machines and factories.

In the early 1930s Bourke-White executed photo murals in RKO Radio City, took her first trip to Russia, and put together her first book, Eyes on Russia (1931). A 1934 Fortune assignment to photograph the effects of the Depression on Midwestern farmers led to Bourke-White's awareness that people are more than figures useful for establishing relative size in photos. Her newfound social compassion led to a collaboration with Erskine Caldwell in documenting the plight of southern tenant farmers and sharecroppers, You Have Seen Their Faces (1937). This book represented a new form of journalism that integrated picture and word as well as being one of the earliest depictions of the Depression's effects on human existence.

In 1936 Bourke-White gave up her associate editorship at Fortune to become one of the four original photographers for the new Luce photographic magazine called Life. From the 1930s on, Bourke-White's work was constantly before the public: she displayed her work in the 1930 exhibit "Men and Machine," shot the first cover of Life, published photo-essays in dozens of magazines, filmed two moving pictures on Russia, and wrote several books. At the outbreak of World War II, Bourke-White, accredited as an official Air Force photographer, did work for the Air Force and Life simultaneously. She was in Russia when the Germans invaded, taking incredible risks to shoot pictures, develop them, and get them to America. She was in a ship torpedoed on the way to Africa, flew aerial missions, and was with General George Patton when he opened Buchenwald. Her reputation was great, and Bourke-White, appreciative of the value of being slightly notorious, allowed myths about herself to spread.

By 1957 after 21 years at Life, Bourke-White was forced to resign because of the crippling effects of Parkinson's disease. Unable to use her camera, she wrote Portrait of Myself (1963), an autobiography that records her struggle against the disease. She was able to hold the disease at bay temporarily with constant exercising, but an accident that forced her into bed finally allowed the disease to overcome her indomitable spirit.

While no theoretician, Bourke-White's photo-essays exhibit clarity, warmth, and crispness. She believed fact and beauty were the keystones for good pictures, especially when the images captured the similarities between people. While initially almost exclusively a photographer, Bourke-White wrote the text of her later books in the same crisp, clear, warm style her pictures illustrate.

Other Works:

The Story of Steel (with D. Kulas, 1928). U.S.S.R. Photographs (1934). Freighters of Fortune (with N. Beasley, 1930). The Book of Sunnybank (with A. P. Terhune, 1934). The Terhune Omnibus (ed. M. J. Herzberg, 1937). North of the Danube (with E. Caldwell, 1939). Say, is This the U.S.A.? (with E. Caldwell, 1941). Shooting the Russian War (1942). They Called It "Purple Heart Valley" (1944). "Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly" (1946). Halfway to Freedom (1949). A Report of the American Jesuits (with J. LaFarge, 1956). The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White (1973). Margaret Bourke-White: The Cleveland Years, 1927-1930 (1976). The Taste of War (1985). Margaret Bourke-White, 1904-1971: Photographs (1988). Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (video, 1989). Power and Paper: Margaret Bourke-White, Modernity, and the Documentary Mode (1998). Margaret Bourke-White: Photographer (1998).

Bibliography:

Ashby, R. and D. G. Ohrn, Herstory: Women Who Changed the World (1995). Brown, T. M., Margaret Bourke-White: Photo-Journalist (1972). Callahan, S., ed., The Photographs of Margaret Bourke-White (1972). Daffron, C., Margaret Bourke-White (1988). Felder, D. G., The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time (1996). Flavell, M. K., You Have Seen Their Faces: Gisele Freund, Walter Benjamin and Margaret Bourke-White as Headhunters of the Thirties (1994). Goldberg, V., Bourke-White (1988). Hood, R. E., "The Compleat Bourke-White" in 12 at War (1967). Howard, W. L., Dear Kit, Dear Skinny: The Letters of Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White (1988). Kirkland, W. M. and F. Kirkland, "Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer of Steel," in Girls Who Became Artists (1934). McEuen, M. A., Changing Eyes: American Culture and the Photographic Image, 1918-1941 (dissertation, 1991). Pollack, P., "Margaret Bourke-White: Roving Recorder" in The Picture History of Photography (1969). Raymond, M. T., "Girl with a Camera," in Topflight Famous American Women (1946). Rolka, G. M., 100 Women Who Shaped World History (1994). Rubin, S.G., Margaret Bourke-White: Her Pictures Were Her Life (1999). Silverman, J., For the World to See: The Life of Margaret Bourke-White (1983). Tucker, A., ed., The Woman's Eye (1973).