Bourke-White, Margaret

(1904-1971)

   Margaret White (she later added her mother’s name) was born in New York City. She studied at the University of Michigan and Cornell University, where she graduated with a degree in biology in 1927. She had already begun to develop her skill as a photographer, and her work photographing the steel mills of Cleveland brought her to the attention of Henry Luce, who offered her a position as associate editor and photographer at Fortune magazine in 1929. She remained there until 1933. In the meantime, Bourke-White produced Eyes on Russia in 1931. She joined Life magazine in 1936 and worked there until 1957, continuing to contribute even after her retirement. During the 1930s, Bourke- White, like Dorothea Lange, documented the plight of those hit by the Dust Bowl. She also collaborated with Erskine Caldwell (to whom she was briefly married) on You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), North of the Danube (1939), and Russia at War (1942). During World War II, Bourke-White was accredited with the U.S. Air Force. She was later in Moscow during the attack by the Nazi forces, and in 1945 she was present when General George S. Patton liberated Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war, she went on photojournalist assignments in India from 1946 to 1949 and South Africa from 1949 to 1950. She was in Korea in 1952 during the Korean War.