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Margaret Bourke-White Papers

An inventory of her papers at Syracuse University


Finding aid created by: SEH
Date: Nov 1991

Biographical History

Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) was an American photographer, war correspondent, author and photojournalist. Among her many achievements, she was the first foreign photographer allowed to take pictures in the USSR of Soviet industry, the first female war correspondent, and the first female photographer for Life magazine, where her work appeared on the cover of the magazine's first issue. She was the author of more than ten books, including her autobiography Portrait of Myself (1963). She received numerous awards over her career, including honorary doctorates from Rutgers University and the University of Michigan, and in 1997 she was designated a Women's History Month honoree by the National Women's History Project.

Scope and Contents of the Collection

The Margaret Bourke-White Papers, spanning 1863 through 1984, comprise biographical material, correspondence, photographs (prints, negatives, color transparencies, slides, etc.), writings, and memorabilia of the American industrial photographer, photojournalist, war correspondent and author (1904-1971). The collection not only reflects her personal life, but also illuminates the chaotic historical times (life in the United States during the Depression; World War II Africa, Germany, Italy and Russia; the partition of India; Korea's guerilla war) Bourke-White chronicled as a photographer for Henry Luce's Time, Inc. (first for Fortune (1930-1936) and then, from its inaugural issue in 1936, Life).

Biographical material contains autobiographical documents including data Bourke-White supplied for biographical reference books, chronologically arranged biographical items, and awards. Biographical materials include a birth certificate, marriage and divorce papers from the 1920s, a 1919 character analysis, mementos from her youth, and her mother's notes on Bourke-White's childhood. Also included here is a complete list of all Bourke-White's Life magazine assignments, compiled by Special Collections staff for reference purposes.

Correspondence-subject files are subdivided into Family and General. Arranged chronologically, Family correspondence begins with letters dated 1863 of Bourke-White's maternal grandparents, Joseph and "Bella" Bourke, and also includes those of parents Minnie and Joseph White, sister Ruth, brother Roger, and several other aunts, uncles, and cousins. General correspondence-subject files follow, arranged alphabetically, and extend to Bourke-White's death in 1971. Through the mid-1950s, correspondence of most depth and duration includes that of advertising agency Meldrum & Fewsmith, Inc., friend M. Jerry Papurt, publishers Simon & Schuster, secretary Margaret Smith, and Time, Inc. Reflecting the scope of her influence and career, Bourke-White's correspondence includes that of artists (Boris Artzybasheff, Rockwell Kent, Georgia O'Keeffe, Lee Simonson, John Vassos, Gluyas Williams); authors (Sherwood Anderson, Pearl Buck, Stanley Burnshaw, Norman Cousins, Theodore Dreiser, Joseph Freeman, John Gunther, Lillian Hellman, Maurice G. Hindus, Joseph North, Robb Sagendorff, Stefansson Vilhjalmur); entertainers (Pablo Casals, Maurice Chevalier, Burl Ives, Andre Kostelanetz, Alexander (Abrasha) Schneider); industrial clients (Aluminum Company of America, American Iron and Steel Institute, Atlantic Refining Company, Bethlehem Steel Company, Congoleum-Nairn Corporation, Flintkote Company, Ford Motor Company, Gulf Oil Corporation, International Harvester Company, International Paper Company, Lehigh Portland Cement Company, National Engraving Company, Otis Steel Company, Oxford Paper Company, Swift and Company); journalists (Robert Cromie, Irv Kupcinet, Frank Moraes, Edward R. Murrow, Robert L. Sherrod, John Cameron Swayze, Lowell Thomas, Dorothy Thompson, Louis Wiley); photographers (Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Yousef Karsh, Dorthea Lange, Jackie Martin, Edward Steichen, Ralph Steiner, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston); and politicians/world leaders (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Hubert H. Humphrey, Jacob Javits, John Lindsay, Clare Boothe Luce, Jawaharlal Nehru, Richard Nixon, Franklin D. Roosevelt).

Glass plates contains about one hundred glass plate negatives, a mix of personal and professional photographs including some from Russia.

Memorabilia consists of financial and legal material, photographic equipment, printed material, scrapbooks, and miscellany. Financial material is predominantly banking records and Bourke-White Studios (1928-1941) business. Legal memorabilia comprises various insurance policies, contracts, wills and studio releases. Also included in this series are books, clippings, and other printed material relating to Bourke-White. Various issues of periodicals are arranged by title, with the exception of Trade Winds which is out of sequence in deference to its extent and role in Bourke-White's early career. Scrapbooks contain a variety of clippings about Bourke-White. Miscellany contains various mementos (memberships and identifications, theater programs, stenographers' notebooks, photography studio plans, war bonds posters); items about Bourke-White; and items from other people (writings by others, including the diary of her physical therapist, music, and a pencil portrait).

Photographic equipment consists of Bourke-White's cameras, camera cases, accessories, and other tools of her trade. Reflecting both technological growth and the rigorous demands Bourke-White placed upon her equipment (and herself), these range from a simple pocket box camera to a large camera specifically designed for aerial photography, and also include a wooden view camera, 35mm cameras, and optically complex German lenses. Some are in near-perfect condition; other show the effects of hard use, include mold, rust and physical damage.

Photographs, personal contains photographs of family, friends, animals, landscapes, etc. There are a number of candid photographs of Bourke-White herself, alone and with others, some taken while she was on location for various jobs. The items are a mixture of color and various types of black and white prints, and a few negatives. Some items have accompanying letters, captions, notes, etc. An item-level inventory of this material is available in Excel form.

Photographs, professional consist of photographs taken by Bourke-White for clients, both corporate (airlines, factories, magazines, railroads, steel mills, universities, etc.) and individual. The vast majority are black-and-white prints, contact prints, and interpositives, with a few color items. An item-level inventory of this material is available in Excel form.

Independent jobs - Corporate clients of note in this subseries include Fortune Magazine, Goodyear, National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Pan American Airways (Pan Am), and Transworld Airlines (TWA). Individual clients include portraits (Patrick Clyne, Sergei Eisenstein, Mrs. Fitelson and baby) as well as estates and gardens (H. W. Albers, Dr. Charles Briggs, Leonard Hanna). For almost all of these, the three-letter code for the job is given in square brackets -- for example, "Easter Air Lines [EAL]".
LIFE magazine jobs - Bourke-White was sent on numerous photographic assignments for LIFE magazine over the course of her career (the very first issue of the magazine bore one of her photographs on the cover). Assignments included companies/organizations (Grumman Aircraft, Strategic Air Command, American Jesuits), places (Mt. Wilson observatory, Jersey City, Wenner Gren Land, Syria, Russia, North Africa), individuals (James Farley, Cordell Hull), and topics (food, Hollywood sets, London blackout, America from a helicopter). Not all of Bourke-White's Life assignments are represented in the collection; for a complete list of Life jobs, compiled by Special Collections Research Center staff, see Biographical material. Where applicable, the three-letter code for the job is also given in square brackets -- for example, "Connecticut River Valley [CRV] [LIFE Job #32964]".
Book-related work - Bourke-White published several books, alone and with her husband Erskine Caldwell. Books represented here include North of the Danube, Say Is This the U.S.A.?, They Called It Purple Heart Valley, and You Have Seen Their Faces. Some of these grew out of assignments for LIFE; relevant LIFE job numbers are given in parentheses. Where applicable, the three-letter code for the job is given in square brackets -- for example, "North of the Danube [NOD]".
India - LIFE magazine sent Bourke-White on assignment to India several times between 1946 and 1951. Rather than filing these by separate job number in the LIFE section, they are grouped here, with additional India photographs which may or may not be related to LIFE jobs.
Korea - Here will be found a small number of photographs of Korea taken on assignment for LIFE magazine
Russia, early 1930s - Subjects include Stalin's mother and great aunt, a ballet school, rolling mills, and cities such as Magnetogorsk and Novorossisk.
Russia, 1940s - Many of these are related to Bourke-White's book Shooting the Russian War.
South Africa - These were likely taken on assignment for LIFE. This subseries includes some color material.
World War II - Perhaps best-known of Bourke-White's photographs are those taken on assignment for LIFE during World War II. Subjects include Allied troops and installations (U.S. Bomber Command in England, WACS in North Africa, French divisions in North Africa, air artillery in Italy, 5th Army at Christmas), individuals (Dwight D. Eisenhower, General T. Roosevelt, the Italian royal family, suicides in Leipzig, the Krupp family), and Buchenwald concentration camp. Some were used in the book Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly.
Nature series - This subseries contains a range of nature photographs, include flowers, animals, birds, moths, etc.
Miscellaneous / unidentified jobs - This subseries contains a mix of color transparencies, black-and-white prints, contact prints, and interpositives. Subjects include Russia,

Recordings consists of audiotapes (reel to reel tapes and audiocassettes), dictation discs, moving image recordings (VHS, U-matic, and 16mm, including a home movie of Bourke-White's goddaughter Wendy Waldroup), and phonodiscs (most 78rpm). Content of the recordings includes speeches, radio interviews, and speech therapy recordings made after Bourke-White was diagnosed with Parkinson's.

Writings includes handwritten and typescript manuscripts and published versions of articles, books, interviews, and lectures, as well as notes and miscellany. Writings are arranged alphabetically by title within each category and by beginning sentence or interviewing agency when titles are not supplied. Author and/or co-author of ten books relating to her photojournalistic experiences, the collection contains typescripts for Dear Fatherland, Rest Quietly (a "candid picture" of a defeated Germany, people and country); Eyes on Russia ("personal impressions" of the Soviet Union and of the "new industry ... being built under the Five Year Plan" during the summer of 1930); Halfway to Freedom (a chronicle of the fight for India's independence and the resulting formation of Pakistan); Shooting the Russian War (documentation of the scenes relating to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941); and They Called It Purple Heart Valley (observations of the World War II Italian war theater, primarily Cassino Valley).

Also included here are drafts and typescripts of Bourke-White's autobiography and last published work, Portrait of Myself, in which she wrote of her struggle with the Parkinson's Disease which was later to claim her life, the topic also of a photojournalistic article in Life. (For published editions of her books that have been cataloged, please refer to the Classic Catalog .) Reference notes are arranged by subject for various writing projects and include those Bourke-White assembled while on various photography assignments and as a World War II war correspondent, as well as the notebooks she kept in Japan and Korea. Miscellany contains the manuscript for an unpublished book, juvenilia, film notes and reviews.

Arrangement of the Collection

Biographical material, correspondence-subject files, and memorabilia are arranged alphabetically by name or topic. Glass plate negatives and photographic equipment. Personal photographs are in roughly chronological order. Professional photographs are subdivided as described above. Recordings are subdivided by type; within that, they are in no particular order except for the phonodiscs, which are arranged alphabetically by title or assigned title. Writings are arranged alphabetically by type and within that by title.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions:

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Access to recordings requires advance notice for production of a use copy. Damaged discs in boxes 68-71 are closed to researchers. Material in frozen storage (denoted by "FB" box numbers) is closed to researchers.

Use Restrictions:

Researchers are not allowed to take photographic images or order scans of Margaret Bourke-White photo prints without copyright holders permission. Contact the Reference and Access Services Librarian for information regarding copyright restrictions.

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

The film "Eyes on Russia" is restricted to in-house use only; loans and duplication prohibited.

Related Material

Published editions of Bourke-White's books have been transferred to Rare Books for cataloging. Please refer to the Classic Catalog to locate these items.

See also the papers of Bourke-White's husband, author Erskine Caldwell. Special Collections Research Center also has a small artificial collection of material related to Bourke-White.

Subject Headings

Persons

Bourke-White, Margaret, 1904-1971.

Corporate Bodies

Time, inc.

Subjects

Advertising -- Photographers.
Advertising photography.
Aerial photography.
Commercial photography.
Documentary photography.
India-Pakistan Conflict, 1947-1949 -- Photography.
Korean War, 1950-1953 -- Photography.
Photographers -- United States -- 20th century.
Photographers -- United States -- Biography.
Photographs.
Photography -- Equipment and supplies.
Photography, Artistic.
Photography, Industrial.
Photography, Military.
Photojournalism.
Photojournalists -- United States -- 20th century.
War correspondents -- 20th century.
War photography.
Women photographers.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Journalists.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, American.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Photography.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Pictorial works.

Places

India -- History -- 20th century -- Pictorial works.
Pakistan -- History -- Pictorial works.
Southern States -- Social conditions -- Pictorial works.
Soviet Union -- Pictorial works.
United States -- Social conditions -- Pictorial works.

Genres and Forms

16mm (photographic film size)
Articles.
Black-and-white photographs.
Clippings (information artifacts)
Color film (film)
Correspondence.
Documentary photographs.
Glass plate negatives.
Manuscripts for publication.
Negatives (photographs)
News photographs.
Photographs.
Scrapbooks.
Slides (photographs)
Sound recordings.
VHS.
Video recordings (physical artifacts)

Occupations

Photographers.
Photojournalists.
War correspondents.

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Margaret Bourke-White Papers,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Acquisition Information

Majority of collection, gift of Roger B. White, 1972. Additional items, gifts of White and others, 1973-2008.

Alexander Ruthven note, gift of Alexandra Connor, 2020.

Lazarus White, Ruth White letters, gift of Anne Helwege, 2023.

Table of Contents

Biographical material

Correspondence-subject files

Glass plates

Memorabilia

Photographic equipment

Photographs, personal

Photographs, professional

Recordings

Writings

Inventory