mbw
Katherine Vargas
Kincaid/Feliciani
English II Hon./World History Hon.
May 25, 2006
Margaret Bourke-White
The New York Sun ran a story in 1929: ”Dizzy Heights Have No Terrors For This Girl Photographer, Who Braves Numerous Perils to Film the Beauty of Iron and Steel” (Ritchie 217). Margaret Bourke-White worked for many different magazine companies that all loved her work and made the same flattering comments. Bourke-White was the first to do many things during her career, but was mostly known for showing drama and art in objects and true emotions of people in her fearless pursuit of photography.
Bourke-White would not have gotten so far without her goals. She wanted to “do all the things women never do” as Claire Price-Groff stated in Extraordinary Women Journalists (153). She was inspired to tell the world how the Depression affected the lives of everyday people (Price-Groff 155). When Margaret Bourke-White had a goal, she would always achieve it. When she was interested in covering the action in North Africa when the U.S. entered World War II and there were not any women photographers covering war, Bourke-White was the one to do it (Price-Groff 155).
Her inspirations became her goals. She loved her father best and she would help him with his hobby, photography. But it was only after he died that she took it more seriously and began taking her own pictures (Price-Groff 154). Around 1912, she was fascinated with the drama and excitement of the scene inside a foundry, which led to the thrilling pictures she made (Petersen’s 1). She quit her advertising work after her visit to the Plains states troubled by drought and saw the dispossessed people. The helpless people who seemed to be abandoned by God and man were one of her major inspirations (Authors and Artists 4). She began to view photography as an artistic medium and one that could be used to inform the public. According to Price-Groff’s Extraordinary Women Journalists, Bourke-White’s perspective on photography and life changed when she saw the desolation of the people and devastation on the land (155), and she did not want to take pictures of luxurious things when there were so many people who struggled to find food (156). “Her interests turned from objects to people” (Price-Groff 155). “While it is very important to get a striking picture of a line of smoke stacks or a row of dynamos, it is becoming more and more important to reflect the life that goes on behind these photographs” (quoted in Petersen’s).
Margaret Bourke-White’s fearless mind and extraordinary character had much to do with how her pictures turned out. As stated by Bourke-White herself in Say, Is This the U.S.A., she was willing to risk her own life to take good pictures and once had to be held in place with a machine gunner’s belt when she was taking pictures from a small cabin plane(180, 181). Price-Groff stated that she sat in the cockpit of an American bomber during an air battle for more pictures. She did not only that, but she was also in a lifeboat for twenty hours and threw out mostly everything to make room for her camera (156), which showed that she was dedicated to her pictures, even if she was in danger. She was strapped into a harness and hoisted 800 feet into the air in order to capture the full impact of the Chrysler Building (Price-Groff 154). She even went in rowboats delivering relief supplies to photograph survivors of the Ohio River flood. “She took pictures of athletic events and climbed onto the steep roofs of the college buildings for better vistas of the campus” (Ritchie 215). She set standards for the photographic staff with not only her fearless pursuit of pictures, but with her eye for content and her perfectionism (Ritchie 218). Bourke-White got her drive to excel at everything from her mother’s perfectionism (Charles 1). She was unwilling to accept the discriminatory constraints placed on women reporters. She said, “Nothing attracts me like a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have pried it open” (Ritchie 218). Aside from her unrelenting aggressiveness, her feminine charm and physical attractiveness let her go to places closed to others (Charles 2).
It would be hard to compete with Bourke-White’s determination. She was willing to be patient and learn to use a spinning wheel in India in order to meet the leader, Mahatma Gandhi, for he would only let her take pictures of him if she learned how (Price-Groff 156). She was so determined, that she even kept up with photography when she was battling Parkinson’s disease (Authors and Artists 5). A Time correspondent said that they had never seen a photographer in such concentrated action (Ritchie 218) and Eric Levin, a contributor for People, said Bourke-White epitomized the dynamic spirit of her age and led a liberated life that was decades ahead of its time (Authors and Artists 1).
Margaret Bourke-White had an eye for the unusual and ironic. The angles and subjects reflected her feelings and point of view (Ritchie 215). Her pictures were like a human document. “Her photos told stories even without text” (Ritchie 215, 217). She refined the techniques so that it was increasingly examining the individual which captured the imagination of viewers at home and brought them closer with the rest of the world (Authors and Artists 3). Something that helped the artistic approach of the Photo-Secessionists was a secondhand camera with a crack in the lens given to Bourke-White by her mother. It created a softened halo-effect on the edges of the picture (Authors and Artists 2). Bourke-White thought that beauty of industry lies in its truth and simplicity and thought of her photography as true art. It was stated that steel had not been photographed before with a view toward drama and visual excitement of the subject and that she is unique in expressing such feelings (Authors and Artists 3). She paid very close attention to detail and found deep meanings in them (Bourke-White 180) and even got bundles of flowers and set them around the building to create a better picture when her assignment was a factory in an empty field (Price-Groff 154). “Such meticulous attention to detail was to become her hallmark, and her work gained immediate attention from the business world, perhaps because of her ability to turn mundane subjects into works of art” (Price-Groff 154). She did not enjoy photographing mechanical aspects of modern life and became more involved with its human elements (Charles 2). Bourke-White loved and appreciated her pictures and a quote from her is that “A picture is perishable; [it] could vanish in a minute (Price-Groff 153).
Margaret Bourke-White not only made works of art from photography, but she was the first to do many things due to her job as a photojournalist. She was the first female allowed to accompany and record an Army Air Force bombing mission (Charles 2) and she was also the first female war photographer in 1942 (Authors and Artists 1), which led to her being one of the first photographers to take pictures of Nazi death camps at Dachau and Buchenwald (Ritchie 218). Bourke-White was also the first westerner to meet and photograph Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his mother and to capture the growth of industry in the Soviet Union (Price-Groff). Not only that, but she was the first photographer for the Fortune magazine and her work was on the cover of the first issue of the Life magazine (Authors and Artists 1).
Margaret Bourke-White had other things to be proud of other than always being “first”. She published ten books of photographs and one autobiography, along with hundreds of thousands of photographs from the Great Depression to the World War II to the break up of the British Empire in India to the Korean War and finally to the launch of the space age in the United Sates (Authors and Artists 1). Being able to record inhuman conditions under which gold was mined in South Africa was something to be proud of (Price-Groff 156). While meeting Gandhi was already an achievement, Margaret Bourke-White took pictures of his funeral (Price-Groff 156). When she met Stalin, Bourke-White won over the Russians and they invited her back next year because her pictures made such good publicity for Russian trade (Ritchie 217).
Margaret Bourke-White’s determination and fearlessness led her to make brilliant pictures. Her pictures were made into works of art and brought human emotions out for people to see. She had many achievements, like always being the first to do something during her lifetime. For Margaret Bourke-White, photography was not just a career, it was her life.
Works Cited
Bourke-White, Margaret, and Erskine Caldwell. Say, Is This the U.S.A. New York: Duell,
Sloan, and Pearce, 1941.
Charles Scribner’s Sons. “Margaret Bourke-White.” Dictionary of American Biography,
Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 1994.
“Margaret Bourke-White.” Authors and Artists for Young Adults. Vol. 51. Farmington Hills,
Michigan: Gale Group, 2003.
Petersen’s Photographic. “The Photography of Design.” Primedia Enterprises, 2003.
Price-Groff, Claire. Extraordinary Women Journalists. New York: Children’s Press, 1997.
Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalists. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1997.
Kincaid/Feliciani
English II Hon./World History Hon.
May 25, 2006
Margaret Bourke-White
The New York Sun ran a story in 1929: ”Dizzy Heights Have No Terrors For This Girl Photographer, Who Braves Numerous Perils to Film the Beauty of Iron and Steel” (Ritchie 217). Margaret Bourke-White worked for many different magazine companies that all loved her work and made the same flattering comments. Bourke-White was the first to do many things during her career, but was mostly known for showing drama and art in objects and true emotions of people in her fearless pursuit of photography.
Bourke-White would not have gotten so far without her goals. She wanted to “do all the things women never do” as Claire Price-Groff stated in Extraordinary Women Journalists (153). She was inspired to tell the world how the Depression affected the lives of everyday people (Price-Groff 155). When Margaret Bourke-White had a goal, she would always achieve it. When she was interested in covering the action in North Africa when the U.S. entered World War II and there were not any women photographers covering war, Bourke-White was the one to do it (Price-Groff 155).
Her inspirations became her goals. She loved her father best and she would help him with his hobby, photography. But it was only after he died that she took it more seriously and began taking her own pictures (Price-Groff 154). Around 1912, she was fascinated with the drama and excitement of the scene inside a foundry, which led to the thrilling pictures she made (Petersen’s 1). She quit her advertising work after her visit to the Plains states troubled by drought and saw the dispossessed people. The helpless people who seemed to be abandoned by God and man were one of her major inspirations (Authors and Artists 4). She began to view photography as an artistic medium and one that could be used to inform the public. According to Price-Groff’s Extraordinary Women Journalists, Bourke-White’s perspective on photography and life changed when she saw the desolation of the people and devastation on the land (155), and she did not want to take pictures of luxurious things when there were so many people who struggled to find food (156). “Her interests turned from objects to people” (Price-Groff 155). “While it is very important to get a striking picture of a line of smoke stacks or a row of dynamos, it is becoming more and more important to reflect the life that goes on behind these photographs” (quoted in Petersen’s).
Margaret Bourke-White’s fearless mind and extraordinary character had much to do with how her pictures turned out. As stated by Bourke-White herself in Say, Is This the U.S.A., she was willing to risk her own life to take good pictures and once had to be held in place with a machine gunner’s belt when she was taking pictures from a small cabin plane(180, 181). Price-Groff stated that she sat in the cockpit of an American bomber during an air battle for more pictures. She did not only that, but she was also in a lifeboat for twenty hours and threw out mostly everything to make room for her camera (156), which showed that she was dedicated to her pictures, even if she was in danger. She was strapped into a harness and hoisted 800 feet into the air in order to capture the full impact of the Chrysler Building (Price-Groff 154). She even went in rowboats delivering relief supplies to photograph survivors of the Ohio River flood. “She took pictures of athletic events and climbed onto the steep roofs of the college buildings for better vistas of the campus” (Ritchie 215). She set standards for the photographic staff with not only her fearless pursuit of pictures, but with her eye for content and her perfectionism (Ritchie 218). Bourke-White got her drive to excel at everything from her mother’s perfectionism (Charles 1). She was unwilling to accept the discriminatory constraints placed on women reporters. She said, “Nothing attracts me like a closed door. I cannot let my camera rest until I have pried it open” (Ritchie 218). Aside from her unrelenting aggressiveness, her feminine charm and physical attractiveness let her go to places closed to others (Charles 2).
It would be hard to compete with Bourke-White’s determination. She was willing to be patient and learn to use a spinning wheel in India in order to meet the leader, Mahatma Gandhi, for he would only let her take pictures of him if she learned how (Price-Groff 156). She was so determined, that she even kept up with photography when she was battling Parkinson’s disease (Authors and Artists 5). A Time correspondent said that they had never seen a photographer in such concentrated action (Ritchie 218) and Eric Levin, a contributor for People, said Bourke-White epitomized the dynamic spirit of her age and led a liberated life that was decades ahead of its time (Authors and Artists 1).
Margaret Bourke-White had an eye for the unusual and ironic. The angles and subjects reflected her feelings and point of view (Ritchie 215). Her pictures were like a human document. “Her photos told stories even without text” (Ritchie 215, 217). She refined the techniques so that it was increasingly examining the individual which captured the imagination of viewers at home and brought them closer with the rest of the world (Authors and Artists 3). Something that helped the artistic approach of the Photo-Secessionists was a secondhand camera with a crack in the lens given to Bourke-White by her mother. It created a softened halo-effect on the edges of the picture (Authors and Artists 2). Bourke-White thought that beauty of industry lies in its truth and simplicity and thought of her photography as true art. It was stated that steel had not been photographed before with a view toward drama and visual excitement of the subject and that she is unique in expressing such feelings (Authors and Artists 3). She paid very close attention to detail and found deep meanings in them (Bourke-White 180) and even got bundles of flowers and set them around the building to create a better picture when her assignment was a factory in an empty field (Price-Groff 154). “Such meticulous attention to detail was to become her hallmark, and her work gained immediate attention from the business world, perhaps because of her ability to turn mundane subjects into works of art” (Price-Groff 154). She did not enjoy photographing mechanical aspects of modern life and became more involved with its human elements (Charles 2). Bourke-White loved and appreciated her pictures and a quote from her is that “A picture is perishable; [it] could vanish in a minute (Price-Groff 153).
Margaret Bourke-White not only made works of art from photography, but she was the first to do many things due to her job as a photojournalist. She was the first female allowed to accompany and record an Army Air Force bombing mission (Charles 2) and she was also the first female war photographer in 1942 (Authors and Artists 1), which led to her being one of the first photographers to take pictures of Nazi death camps at Dachau and Buchenwald (Ritchie 218). Bourke-White was also the first westerner to meet and photograph Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his mother and to capture the growth of industry in the Soviet Union (Price-Groff). Not only that, but she was the first photographer for the Fortune magazine and her work was on the cover of the first issue of the Life magazine (Authors and Artists 1).
Margaret Bourke-White had other things to be proud of other than always being “first”. She published ten books of photographs and one autobiography, along with hundreds of thousands of photographs from the Great Depression to the World War II to the break up of the British Empire in India to the Korean War and finally to the launch of the space age in the United Sates (Authors and Artists 1). Being able to record inhuman conditions under which gold was mined in South Africa was something to be proud of (Price-Groff 156). While meeting Gandhi was already an achievement, Margaret Bourke-White took pictures of his funeral (Price-Groff 156). When she met Stalin, Bourke-White won over the Russians and they invited her back next year because her pictures made such good publicity for Russian trade (Ritchie 217).
Margaret Bourke-White’s determination and fearlessness led her to make brilliant pictures. Her pictures were made into works of art and brought human emotions out for people to see. She had many achievements, like always being the first to do something during her lifetime. For Margaret Bourke-White, photography was not just a career, it was her life.
Works Cited
Bourke-White, Margaret, and Erskine Caldwell. Say, Is This the U.S.A. New York: Duell,
Sloan, and Pearce, 1941.
Charles Scribner’s Sons. “Margaret Bourke-White.” Dictionary of American Biography,
Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Farmington Hills, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 1994.
“Margaret Bourke-White.” Authors and Artists for Young Adults. Vol. 51. Farmington Hills,
Michigan: Gale Group, 2003.
Petersen’s Photographic. “The Photography of Design.” Primedia Enterprises, 2003.
Price-Groff, Claire. Extraordinary Women Journalists. New York: Children’s Press, 1997.
Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalists. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1997.