The Female Gaze: Life Magazine, Gender, and World War II

Alissa Schapiro, assistant curator of Life Magazine and the Power of Photography, discusses the work of Life female photographers Margaret Bourke-White, Marie Hansen, and Nina Leen, focusing on their photo-essays about American women in the context of World War II. With the status of female labor in flux, these photographers captured the roles available to women—paying close attention to race and class in addition to gender—while simultaneously solidifying their own positions within Life’s male-dominated staff. Following the talk, Katherine A. Bussard, Peter C. Bunnell Curator of Photography at the Princeton University Art Museum, and Dolores Flamiano, Ruth D. Bridgeforth Professor of Telecommunications at James Madison University, present their research on gender politics at Life, both institutionally and as manifested on the printed pages of the magazine.