Photographing History

Who was Margaret Bourke-White, and why is her work still so respected today?

1 What do the following people and places have in common—the Indian leader Gandhi, the survivors of the World War II concentration camps, the Great Depression, the steel mills of Cleveland, Ohio, and the Arctic Circle? Margaret Bourke-White photographed them all during her career as a photojournalist. She was present for many monumental events of the 20th century, and she recorded them with courage and sensitivity.

2 Margaret Bourke-White was born in New York in 1904. In college, she studied biology and planned to be a herpetologist, a scientist who studies reptiles and amphibians. Then, she took a class in photography and discovered a new passion.

3 After graduating from college, BourkeWhite headed to Cleveland, where she photographed the steel mills that were so prevalent in that city. In the 1920s, American industry was booming and the country was growing. Bourke-White documented much of this growth and the factories where it was taking place. Although the material she was covering was cold and industrial, BourkeWhite managed to make the photographs of machinery and factories both artistic and beautiful.

4 A publisher named Henry Luce was very impressed with Bourke-White’s photographs of American industry and hired her to work at his magazine, Fortune. When he began a new magazine called LIFE in 1936, Bourke-White was one of Luce’s first four photographers. In fact, her picture of a Montana dam was featured on the cover of the magazine’s first issue.

5 Bourke-White’s work with LIFE magazine led her on adventures all across the globe. She was the first foreign photographer to be allowed to take pictures in the Soviet Union in 1930. She took photos of the German siege on Moscow in 1941. As the first female war correspondent of World War II, BourkeWhite faced danger on a regular basis. This was at a time when it was still customary for women to work mostly in the home, taking care of a family and a household.

6 One of Bourke-White’s closest brushes with danger occurred when she was assigned to cover the U.S. armed forces at the start of the war. On her way to North Africa, the ship she was traveling in was struck by a torpedo and sank. BourkeWhite survived the attack and went on to follow and photograph the action of the war. When the concentration camps were liberated several years later at the end of World War II, Bourke-White was there. Wth her camera, she captured some of the most disturbing and moving images ever recorded.

7 As stressful and difficult as her work must have been, Margaret Bourke-White loved what she did. She was the eyes and ears of the world in places most Americans had never visited and never would. Although Bourke-White died at the relatively early age of 67, she had traveled the world and photographed much of what she saw. Her pictures are a permanent record of both her life and the world during the 20th century.

Spectrum Reading Grade 6

38

1. Check the sentence that best states the main idea of the selection.

_____ Margaret Bourke-White photographed Cleveland’s steel mills in the 1920s.

_____ Margaret Bourke-White was a talented photojournalist who traveled the world and broke new ground for women.

_____ Margaret Bourke-White was one of LIFE magazine’s first four photogrphers.

2. Is this selection a fantasy, or does it take place in reality? How can you tell?

3. Why was Bourke-White’s job unusual for a woman?

4. What did Bourke-White plan to be before she discovered photography?

5. What was unusual about Bourke-White’s industrial pictures?

6. Number the events below to show the order in which they happened.

Bourke-White photographed the liberation of the concentration camps.

Bourke-White began working for LIFE magazine.

_____ Henry Luce hired Bourke-White to work at Fortune.

Bourke-White graduated from college.

7. What do you find most interesting about Margaret Bourke-White’s life?

Spectrum Reading Grade 6

39