Margaret Bourke-White was born on June 14th, 1904 in the Bronx. New York. Margaret’s parents were tinkerers and artists, and she traveled with her father to the New Jersey plant where he worked, watching and enamored with industrialism, which likely influenced her focus on industrial photography after attending college. Throughout her childhood, Bourke-White had an interest in insects, turtles, frogs, books and maps. Her father was fond of photography but never seriously took up the skill. Margaret herself had not picked up a camera until after her father's death. A cheap, imperfect camera in hand, she was enrolled in classes at Columbia University in New York and focused in artistic studies. She took a design and composition class with not intention of learning about photography. In fact, she had planned on being a herpetologist as a child due to her interests. Despite this fact, the class planted a seed that would later bloom into a photojournalism career. For 6 years, starting in 1921, Margaret bounced from college to college until she finally graduated in 1927.

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Once she had graduated, Margaret moved to Cleveland and set up a studio there. She focused on capturing industrial subjects. Her father never left her mind and definitely influenced her work. The industrial photography she pioneered hearkens back to her working class upbringing and her father's interest in photography rubbing off on her. Her mother encouraged her, leaving books out to fuel hers and her siblings's interests. Bourke-White's photography would later catch the eye of the publisher of Fortune, Henry Luce. He sent her on her first of many international assignments, documenting the Soviet Union's industry, a study right up Margaret's alley. She traveled and captured photos alongside the author, Erksine Caldwell, in the American South as well.

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Throughout her photography career, Bourke-White broke molds. She was the first photo essayist and one of the first, among 4 photographers, to work at the fledgling Life magazine, taken onto the project as a staff photographer in fall of 1936. She was the first foreign photojournalist to travel to the Soviet Union during and post-WWII. She is credited as being part of an exhibition on Cubism and American Photography.

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Her style focused at first on the gritty, like cities and infrastructure. Later, the two publications she was employed by gave her the opportunities to photograph major international events and stories from all around the world, from uprisings, to wars, to revolutions and liberation. Thus, her work overall became infused with a primary focus on the narrative of civilian life. Bourke-White was perhaps drawn to civilian subjects due to her working class upbringing and in search of humanity in conflict. Bourke-White's incredible work paved the way for photojournalists to come.

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