Margaret Bourke-White
Margaret Bourke-White (/ˈbɜːrk/; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971) was an American photographer and documentary photographer.[1] She was arguably best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry under the Soviets' first five-year plan,[2] as the first American female war photojournalist, and for taking the photograph (of the construction of Fort Peck Dam) that became the cover of the first issue of Life magazine.[3][4][5]
For other people named Margaret White, see Margaret White.
Margaret Bourke-White
June 14, 1904
August 27, 1971 (aged 67)
Photographer, photojournalist
Early life[edit]
Margaret Bourke-White,[6] born Margaret White[7] in the Bronx, New York,[8] was the daughter of Joseph White, a non-practicing Jew whose father came from Poland, and Minnie Bourke, who was of Irish Catholic descent.[9] She grew up in Middlesex, New Jersey (the Joseph and Minnie White House in Middlesex), and graduated from Plainfield High School in Union County.[8][10] From her naturalist father, an engineer and inventor, she claimed to have learned perfectionism; from her "resourceful homemaker" mother, she claimed to have developed “an unapologetic desire for self-improvement."[11] Her younger brother, Roger Bourke White, became a prominent Cleveland businessman and high-tech industry founder, and her older sister, Ruth White, became well known for her work at the American Bar Association in Chicago, Ill.[9] Roger Bourke White described their parents as "Free thinkers who were intensely interested in advancing themselves and humanity through personal achievement", attributing the success of their children in part to this quality. He was not surprised at his sister Margaret's success, saying "[she] was not unfriendly or aloof".
Margaret's interest in photography began as a hobby in her youth, supported by her father's enthusiasm for cameras. Despite her interest, in 1922, she began studying herpetology at Columbia University, only to have her interest in photography strengthened after studying under Clarence White (no relation).[8] She left after one semester, following the death of her father.[7] She transferred colleges several times, attending the University of Michigan (where she was a photographer at the Michiganensian and became a member of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority),[12][13] Purdue University in Indiana, and Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.[7] Bourke-White ultimately graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1927, leaving behind a photographic study of the rural campus for the school's newspaper, including photographs of her famed dormitory, Risley Hall.[7][8][14] A year later, she moved from Ithaca, New York, to Cleveland, Ohio, where she started a commercial photography studio and began concentrating on architectural and industrial photography.
Later years[edit]
In 1953, Bourke-White developed her first symptoms of Parkinson's disease.[7] She was forced to slow her career to fight encroaching paralysis.[5] In 1959 and 1961 she underwent several operations to treat her condition,[7] which effectively ended her tremors but affected her speech.[5] Bourke-White wrote an autobiography, Portrait of Myself, which was published in 1963 and became a bestseller, but she grew increasingly infirm and isolated in her home in Darien, Connecticut. A pension plan set up in the 1950s, "though generous for that time", no longer covered her health-care costs. She also suffered financially from her personal generosity and from "less-than-responsible attendant care".[5]
Personal life[edit]
In 1924, during her studies, she married Everett Chapman, but the couple divorced two years later.[11] Margaret White added her mother's surname, "Bourke", to her name in 1927 and hyphenated it. Bourke-White and novelist Erskine Caldwell were married from 1939 to their divorce in 1942.[7]