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MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE FIRST FEMALE WAR PHOTOJOURNALIST

FULL NAME: Margaret Bourke-White

BORN: JUNE 14, 1904, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, U.S.A.

DIED: AUGUST 27, 1971, STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT, U.S.A.

NATIONALITY: AMERICAN

Camera from the 1930s, similar to the model Margaret would have used for her early work

A SERIES OF FIRSTS

Margaret Bourke-White stood out as many things: the first U.S. female war photojournalist, the first Western photographer allowed to take pictures of Soviet industry, the first female photographer to work with the U.S. Armed Forces, and one of the first photographers of the hugely famous Life magazine. Her incredible photographs—of everything from the Great Depression and Mahatma Gandhi to the German concentration camps of Nazi Germany—remain iconic to this day.

Photography began as a hobby for Margaret, but she quickly realized that it was what she wanted to do with her life. Her early work was in architectural and industrial photography, and she became known for her originality. From there, Margaret’s career began to take shape. In 1930, she was hired to photograph an iron works factory in Soviet Germany, which quickly grew to a longer-term project documenting the industry and people of the Soviet Union. At this time, she also photographed the Dust Bowl and Great Depression in the American Midwest, as well as racial and class divides. In both of these projects, she had a great eye for capturing personal and social situations. Her work helped explain and share these difficult stories from around the globe. Her photograph of Montana’s Fort Peck Dam became the cover photograph of the very first issue of Life magazine, where she worked as its first female photojournalist (and one of only four staff photographers). Margaret documented World War II for Life magazine, as the first female photographer to work directly with the U.S. Armed Forces. She was the only foreign photographer in Moscow when German forces invaded. Her shocking photographs of the inmates of Nazi concentration camps were some of the first ever seen. After World War II, Margaret traveled to India and documented the work of the peace activist Mahatma Gandhi (incredibly, capturing an iconic portrait of him only hours before his assassination). She also recorded the extreme violence that broke out over the mass migration between India and Pakistan, known as the Partition. Her work was direct, and she was not afraid to show the horrors of war.

FABULOUS FIRSTS
	FIRST FEMALE WAR PHOTOJOURNALIST
	FIRST WESTERN PHOTOGRAPHER ALLOWED TO PHOTOGRAPH SOVIET INDUSTRY
	FIRST FEMALE PHOTOGRAPHER TO WORK WITH THE US ARMED FORCES
	PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE FIRST COVER OF LIFE MAGAZINE
Iconic photograph by Margaret Bourke-White of women sewing American flags in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940

FEARLESS PHOTOGRAPHER

Margaret was not only an incredibly talented photographer, she was also fiercely brave. She knew that the stories around her needed to be told and shared with an audience, and she was never afraid to throw herself into any situation, however dangerous it might have been for her. Margaret’s influences on photography and photojournalism are monumental. Her iconic photographs are on public display around the world, such as at the Library of Congress, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.