By Karen Holt, Historic American Examiner
World War II was but a few months old when a number of solemn-faced Army officers gathered in Washington, D.C. for an unusual meeting. As they inspected a variety of fabric bolts in colors of green and gray, along with an assortment of buttons, the question they sought to answer was: “What should the well-dressed woman war photographer wear overseas?” In the background stood a smiling Margaret Bourke-White, the soon to be recipient of their decision.
Born on June 14, 1906, Margaret was the daughter of printing industry inventor and engineer Joseph White, who traced a Polish-Jewish ancestry. Her mother, Minnie Bourke had an Irish-English ancestry. She worked in publishing and bore a loving, nurturing behavior towards her children.
Margaret grew up in Bound Brook, NJ and as a child developed a fear of the dark. Though her nurturing mother attempted to soothe Margaret’s fears, her engineering father was the one who erased the word ‘fear’ from her vocabulary with his tool of choice - snakes. Taking his daughter on nature walks, Joseph shared with her information about the animals and their habitats. Before long, he had her so fascinated with the creatures; she forgot to be afraid of them. The two began to build a number of wire cages as habitats for a growing collection of slithering reptiles. Margaret went on to pursue a degree in Herpetology (the study of reptiles) from Cornell University in 1927. (continue reading at the Historic American Examiner)
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