March 16, 2020

In honor of Women’s History Month in the United States, World Book travels to New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and its special exhibition on the American photographer Dorothea Lange, “Words & Pictures.” Lange was best known for her pictures of migratory farmworkers of the 1930′s. “Words and Pictures” features iconic Lange works from the MoMA collection as well as some lesser known photographs of street scenes and from her series on criminal justice reform. The exhibition began February 9 and runs through May 9.

Dorothea Lange poses with her camera along a highway in California. credit: Library of Congress

Lange’s photographs were known for honestly and sympathetically portraying families who were victims of drought and the Great Depression, a global economic slump of the 1930′s. Her pictures, which appeared in several newspapers and magazines, helped create support for government relief programs for migrant workers. Many of Lange’s photographs were published in her book An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion (1939).

Migrant Mother, a photograph taken by Dorothea Lange in 1936, captures the despair of a migrant family during the Great Depression in the United States. credit: Library of Congress

Lange was born on May 25 or 26, 1895, in Hoboken, New Jersey. She studied photography at Columbia University. In 1919, she opened a portrait studio in San Francisco. During World War II (1939-1945), Lange photographed Japanese-Americans whom the government moved to relocation camps from their homes on the West Coast. After the war, she photographed Mormon towns, life in California, and other subjects. She also took photographs in Asia, Egypt, Ireland, and South America. Lange died on Oct. 11, 1965.

June 19, 2018

Last week, on June 15, a special exhibit called “Daguerreotypes: Five Decades of Collecting” opened at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Daguerreotypes were the first practical, popular method of photography. The word daguerreotype also refers to the photographs produced by this process. The National Portrait Gallery’s daguerreotype exhibit runs until June 2, 2019, and is part of a 50th anniversary program celebrating the museum’s opening in 1968. The National Portrait Gallery exhibits likenesses of people who have contributed significantly to the history, development, and culture of the United States.

This daguerreotype of Chester Arthur was made while he was a partner in a New York City law firm in 1858, 23 years before he became president of the United States. Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Daguerreotypes are named for Louis J. M. Daguerre, a French stage designer and painter who perfected the photographic process in 1837. Daguerre’s process involved treating a thin sheet of silver-plated copper with fumes from crystals of iodine to make the silver plating sensitive to light. The sheet was then placed inside a camera and exposed to light through the camera lens for 5 to 40 minutes. After the sheet was removed from the camera, it was developed by vapors from heated mercury. The mercury combined with the silver at the points where it had been affected by light, and formed a highly detailed image. The image was then fixed (made permanent) by treating the sheet with sodium thiosulfate.

This daguerreotype of Thomas Jackson was made while he was a faculty member at the Virginia Military Institute in 1855, six years before he gained the nickname “Stonewall” at the First Battle of Bull Run early in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Daguerre first published a description of his process in 1839. The process was soon improved by other inventors. By 1841, for example, the exposure time for the photographs had been reduced to less than a minute. Daguerreotype portraits were tremendously popular during the 1840′s and 1850′s, especially in the United States. The daguerreotype was eventually replaced by other processes. People now collect daguerreotypes of particular beauty or unusual subject matter.

The National Portrait Gallery’s daguerreotype collection includes the portraits above of Chester Arthur and Stonewall Jackson, as well as such iconic 1800′s figures as showman P. T. Barnum, activist and reformer Dorothea Dix, and author Harriet Beecher Stowe.

August 8, 2017

Late last month, on July 28, legendary American photographic editor John Morris died at a hospital near his home in Paris, France. A longtime editor for magazines, newspapers, and the famous Magnum Photos cooperative, Morris commissioned and published some of the most iconic photographs of the 1900’s. He was 100 years old.

John Morris attends the 2010 International Center of Photography Infinity Awards in New York City. Credit: © Theo Wargo, Getty Images

John Godfrey Morris was born on Dec. 7, 1916, in Maple Shade, New Jersey. Morris grew up in Chicago, where he attended the University of Chicago. As a student, Morris helped found and edit a university publication modeled on Life magazine—one of the era’s most popular illustrated publications.

After graduating in 1938, Morris began working for Time-Life publications in New York City. After the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), Morris went to London, where he edited the many war photos going into Life’s weekly editions. On June 7, 1944, he edited the stirring images captured by Robert Capa the day before as the famous photographer hit the beaches of Normandy, France, with the U.S. Army on D-day. Before the invention of digital photography, photographers in the field rarely saw their developed images. It was up to a photo editor to process the photographer’s film and select, crop, and otherwise edit the photographs for publication.

After the war, Morris returned to New York City, where he worked as photo editor for the Ladies’ Home Journal, the biggest selling magazine at the time. One of his most ambitious projects there was sending Capa and author John Steinbeck to report on conditions in the Soviet Union. In 1953, Morris became executive editor of Magnum Photos, a cooperative created by Capa and others to help photographers sell their work while keeping copyright control. At the time, Magnum employed such photography stars as Capa, Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, David Seymour, and W. Eugene Smith. Today, Magnum continues to be one of the world’s preeminent photographic agencies.

Morris served briefly as photo editor for The Washington Post before joining The New York Times in 1967, during the Vietnam War (1957-1975). In 1968, Morris insisted a graphic photograph of the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner run on the front page of the Times—a photograph many credit with help turning public opinion against the war. In 1972, Morris published another now-famous photo showing screaming Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. Those two Vietnam War images both won the Pulitzer Prize. “I have always believed in showing how ugly war is,” Morris said, “and I have encouraged newspapers to take a realistic view of war.”

Morris later moved to Paris, where he worked for National Geographic before retiring in 1989. In his later years, Morris worked with young photographers and often spoke about his long career and of his experiences with some of the world’s greatest photographers. Oddly enough, Morris himself rarely took photos, but his editorial vision helped create and define modern photojournalism.

July 26, 2017

Eighty years ago today, German photographer Gerda Taro was killed covering the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Taro, a close friend and colleague of famed photographer Robert Capa, was the first woman war correspondent killed on assignment. She died during the Battle of Brunete on July 26, 1937, just a few days before her 27^th birthday.

Gerda Taro and Robert Capa laugh over a drink in 1936. Eighty years ago today, on July 26, 1937, Taro was killed covering the Spanish Civil War. Credit: © Fred Stein Archive/Getty Images

Taro was born Gerta Pohorylle on Aug. 1, 1910, into a Polish-Jewish family in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1933, she fled Germany to escape the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, who had recently come to power with Adolf Hitler. Pohorylle settled in Paris, France, where she befriended Capa, himself a Jewish immigrant who had fled persecution in Hungary. Capa, then known as André Friedmann, had just begun his career as a news photographer. He taught Pohorylle all he knew, and the two soon became a team covering assignments together. Soon after they began collaborating, they changed their names to increase their individual marketability.

In 1936, Taro and Capa went to Spain to cover the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The pair traveled with the government’s liberal Republican forces (they were fighting against fascist Nationalist rebels), and they covered numerous battles. Often working at or near the front lines, Taro and Capa were in near-constant danger. Taro became known for her daring behavior, often risking her life for a good photograph. She believed passionately in the fight against fascism; she felt that meaningful photographs would gain more worldwide support for the Spanish Republican cause.

In July 1937, Capa returned to Paris to develop and sell their photographs. At the same time, Republican and Nationalist forces were engaged in a bloody battle for the town of Brunete just west of Madrid, the Spanish capital. Taro, working with Canadian photographer Ted Allan while Capa was away, took numerous photos during the fighting at Brunete. On July 25, she and Allan jumped on the running boards of a car carrying wounded soldiers away from the front. The car collided with an out-of-control Republican tank, and both Taro and Allan were severely injured. Allan survived his wounds, but Taro died the next morning.

Thousands of people attended Taro’s funeral in Paris, including a distraught and grief-stricken Robert Capa. Taro was eulogized in the press, and she became a heroine of liberal causes in both France and Spain. World events soon eclipsed Taro’s fame, however, as the fascist Nationalists won the Spanish Civil War in April 1939—with much help from Nazi Germany, a nation whose attack on Poland started World War II a few months later. Capa’s fame greatly increased during World War II as he photographed the fighting in China and then in North Africa and Europe. Capa too was killed on assignment while covering the Indochina War in 1954.