Bourke-White, Margaret (1904-1971), was an American news photographer. Bourke-White helped refine the use of photo essays in photojournalism. Photo essays use a series of photographs—instead of just one picture—to portray a subject.
Bourke-White was born on June 14, 1904, in New York City. In 1929, she went to work as a photographer for Fortune magazine, where she specialized in pictures of factories, machinery, and industrial workers. In 1936, she became one of the first staff photographers of Life magazine. During World War II (1939-1945), she photographed combat scenes in Europe. She also recorded the shocking condition of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Among her other famous assignments were her coverage of India’s struggle for independence from the United Kingdom, the Korean War, and labor conditions in South Africa.
Bourke-White published a number of books that featured her photographs, including Eyes on Russia (1931), North of the Danube (1939), They Called It “Purple Heart Valley” (1944), and Halfway to Freedom (1949). You Have Seen Their Faces (1937), a joint effort of Bourke-White and the American novelist Erskine Caldwell, showed the misery of sharecroppers in the Southern United States. Bourke-White also wrote an autobiography, Portrait of Myself (1963). She died on Aug. 27, 1971.
