Margaret Bourke-White: Courageous Photographer

Memorial Hall Library, 2 N Main St, Andover, MA | Get Directions »
FREE

Sally Matson will bring the courageous photographer of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, Margaret Bourke-White, to life.  Star photographer for Fortune and Life, Bourke-White captured the beauty of industry at the Corning Glass Works, Chrysler, and Republic Steel.  She shot advertisements for TWA, Buick, and Goodyear Tire and made powerful machines look like art during the mindset of industrial expansion in the 1920s.  In 1930, she served as the first western photographer allowed into Russia.  She collaborated with Erskine Caldwell to document the poverty of the sharecroppers, concentrating on the people behind the machines.

Bourke-White’s many adventures included bombing missions in WWII as the first accredited female photographer for the Army and Air Force.  Her photographs of Churchill, Stalin, Patton, and Gandhi are burned into our memories of the 1940s.  Letters and telegrams from Henry R. Luce, Amelia Earhart, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ansel Adams, and Dorothea Lange help to personalize the story.  Hear about Bourke-White’s adventures climbing on skyscrapers, leaning out of airplanes, and going into war zones.  She had an indomitable spirit and a craving for attention.   

Ms. Matson who performs also as Susan B. Anthony-the Invincible! said, " Both women were daring, passionate about their work, and ahead of their time."  Matson, who has been acting and directing for thirty years, is part of a Boston based group of performers called Solo Together.  This program is made possible in part by a grant from the Andover Cultural Council, an agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.  The program is offered in collaboration with the Andover Historical Society and the Addison Gallery of American Art which owns four of Bourke-White’s photographs.