Autobiography

By: Margaret Bourke-White

Date: 1963

Source: Bourke-White, Margaret. Portrait of Myself. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1963, 76–80.

About the Author: Margaret Bourke-White (1904–1971) was born in the Bronx in New York City and raised in rural New Jersey. Although she received her undergraduate degree in herpetology (the study of reptiles), she had a long-standing interest in photography and became a commercial photographer upon completing college. She quickly established herself as a top industrial photographer, beginning with her first assignments for Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1927. Her work then garnered the attention of magazine publishers, and she was hired as the first photographer for Fortune magazine when it debuted in 1929. She moved to New York, where she created magazine photo-essays and took on advertising assignments as...