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LIFE: Six Women Photographers

LIFE founder and editor-in-chief, Henry R. Luce, was convinced that American political, economic, and cultural power would, and should, dominate the era he defined as the “American Century.” Photojournalism, or “photo essays” as he coined them, could effectively shape an authentically American vision of the United States as an international power, inspiring its people, in Luce’s words, “to live and work and fight with vigor and enthusiasm.” By giving readers vivid images of industrial strength, women and the family, race relations, World War II, labor, and the Cold War, the photographers in this exhibition contributed to this view of the United States as a global player seeking its identity on the world stage.Six pioneering female photographers were among those who contributed to LIFE’s pursuit of this American character: Margaret Bourke-White, Marie Hansen, Martha Holmes, Lisa Larsen, Nina Leen, and Hansel Mieth. These photographers were among the few women who were retained as full-time staff or on a semi-permanent basis rather than as freelancers. Their cameras captured events both international and domestic, wide-ranging and intimate, serious and playful. Central to LIFE’s reportage was the sometimes contentious relationship between photographers and editors, with each holding a stake in the ideology and content of the final essay. Ultimately, the editorial staff, not the photographers, chose which images would be published, and thus how each story was presented.In his prospectus for LIFE, Luce stressed the importance for one “to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events…” It was not about reading but rather about allowing the images to tell the stories. These six photographers played a vital role in Luce’s quest to achieve that end.