MbWhite Essay Research Paper Margaret Bourke White

Mb-White Essay, Research Paper

Margaret Bourke White Margaret Bourke-White was born on June 14th, 1904, in the Bronx, New York. Herfather, Joseph White, was an inventor and engineer, and her mother, Minnie Bourke, wasforward thinking woman, especially for the early 1900’s. When Margaret was very young, thefamily moved to a rural suburb in New Jersey, so that Joseph could be closer to his job. Margaret, along with her sister Ruth, were taught from an early age by their mother. Hermother was strict in monitoring their outside influences, limiting everything from friedfoods to funny papers. When Margaret was eight, her father took her inside a foundry towatch the manufacture of printing presses. While in the foundry, she saw some molten ironpoured. This event filled Margaret with joy, and this memory would be burned in her mind foryears to come. Joseph White’s chief recreation activity suited his scientific mind; her wasan amateur photographer. The White’s home was filled with his photographs. If somethinginterested Margaret’s father, it also interested her. She pretended as a girl to takephotographs with an empty cigar box. Although she claimed that she never took a photographuntil after her father’s death. Her cousin Florence remembers her helping her father todevelop prints in his bathtub. In 1917, her father suffered a stroke. By 1919, he hadrecovered enough for the family to take a trip to Niagara Falls and Canada. While there, shebegan to make notes on his photographs, and helped him set up shots on several occasions. In 1921, she began college at Rutgers, then moved to the University of Michigan, then toCornell University, from which she graduated in 1927. As a freshman at Michigan, she begantaking pictures for the yearbook, and within a year was offered the seat of photographyeditor. Instead of taking the position, she married a engineering graduate student, EverettChapman, and abandoned photography to pursue married life. When the marriage fell apart twoyears later, she moved to Cornell, where she again took up photography. After she graduatedin 1927, she moved to Cleveland, where her family was living, to start her career with aportfolio full of architecture pictures she had taken while at Cornell. She called uponseveral architects who were Cornell alumni for jobs. After the success of her first job, shefounded the Bourke-White studio in her one room apartment. Then, money she made fromshooting elegant home and gardens by day was spent on photographing steel mills at night andon the weekends. The circulation of her portfolio brought her to the attention ofCleveland’s biggest industrial tycoons. After a few failures, she was successful atcapturing the Otis Steel mill. From this, she made enough money to move her studio to theTerminal Tower skyscraper. In the spring of 1929, she received a telegram from Henry R. Luce, a publisher who was planning a new weekly magazine called Time. Luce invited her tocome to New York so they could meet, and so Bourke-White could see what Time was toaccomplish. She was unimpressed, but Luce and his editor Parker Lloyd- Smith were alsoplanning a new business magazine that would make use of dramatic industrial photographs. This was perfect for Bourke-White. She accepted their offer as a staff photographer. In July1929, the decision was made to publish the magazine, called Fortune. Bourke-White beganworking on stories for the premier issue, eight months away. The first lead story was tofeature Swift & Co., a hog processing plant. She worked with Lloyd-Smith until he became toosick from the stench to continue. After Bourke-White was finished photographing the hogs,she left most of her camera equipment to be burned. Her documentation of this was a step inthe development of the photo essay, and Bourke-White’s style. In 1930, Russia was in the midst of an industrial and cultural revolution. It’s doors wereall but closed to westerners, especially photographers. Bourke-White was attracted toRussia, but her editors at Fortune doubted that she would gain access. They instead sent herto Germany to photograph the emerging industry there. She decided that she would go on herown, and after six weeks of waiting, her visa cleared the Soviet bureaucracy. She loaded upher cameras along with trunks of food, and set off on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Russia wasfull of red tape for Bourke-White. Fortunately for her, an official was so impressed withher portfolio that he granted her a permit requiring all Soviet citizens to aid and assistBourke-White whenever she needed it. Over the next five weeks, she traveled all over Russia,capturing dams, factories, farms, and their workers. She had taken nearly three thousandnegatives of Russia, the first complete documentary of the newly emerging Soviet Russia. Inthe summer of 1931, she was invited back to Russia by the government. This time throughRussia, she concentrated not on machinery, but on people. The New York Times Sunday Magazinepublished six article that she had written about the trip, along with her photographs. Inthe summer of 1932, Bourke-White went back to Russia, this time to film. This trip, however,was mainly a failure, since Bourke- White was not technically adept and hadn’t learned the

skill of seeing in motion. As a result, her films did not have the same feeling herphotographs had. She tried to sell the footage to a Hollywood studio, but they would not buyit because of their fear that it would b