Margaret
Bourke-White
(1904 – 1971)

Aggressive
and relentless in her pursuit of pictures, Bourke-White had the knack of being
at the right place at the right time. She was the premiere female industrial
photographer, getting her start around 1927 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the Otis
Steel Company.
Margaret
Bourke-White is a woman of many firsts. She was a forerunner in the newly
emerging field of photojournalism, and was the first female to be hired as such.
She was the first photographer for Fortune magazine, in 1929. In 1930, she was
the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union. Henry Luce hired
her as the first female photojournalist for LIFE Magazine, soon after its
creation in 1935, and one of her photographs adorned its first cover. She was
the first female war correspondent and the first to be allowed to work in combat
zones during World War II, and one of the first photographers to enter and
document the death camps.
© by Galerie Stephen Hoffman