| Although
there is ample evidence that there were many women professional photographers
from the 1800's on, by the 1940's photojournalism was dominated by men. This situation
lasted well into the 1970's as I know from personal experience. When I was hired by the New York Post in 1977, I was the only woman among 14 staff photographers. Marion Strahl, the subject of this 1942 Minicam Photography photo is quoted on the cover "Photography is a man-sized job and I like it!" Do you think she really said that? |  |
 | Here's how the editors explain Marion's success, "Marion Stahl is the kind of girl you would like to spend the afternoon with. That Press Photographer's card in her hat is her own, too. You'll see more like her as women take over the wartime job of getting the pictures." |
| And here is Marion's description of her job, "My most interesting assignment was working for seventy-two straight hours during the famous Armistice Day Blizzard of 1940, when a 600-foot boat was shipwrecked on Lake Michigan. After driving eighty miles, then walking two miles through the snow with Speed Graphic equipment, losing my mittens, falling into a barbed wire fence, and freezing my shutter, I finally got to the scene, where I worked all night shooting the rescue of the survivors. The next day and night were spent getting out picture pages and engraving them, and supplying prints to syndicates and other papers." You go girl!!! | |