Photographs

Introduce Margaret Bourke-White, who was an American photographer known for her contributions to photojournalism. Students will be analyzing her photo account of the partition of India and Pakistan. Students should be grouped into pairs. Each group should be assigned one photograph to look at, make observations, deductions and then ask questions. They will then share their findings with the class.

Brief Bio of Margaret Bourke-White

(Adapted from Britannica)

Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer known for her contributions to photojournalism.

Throughout the 1930s Bourke-White went on assignments to create photo-essays in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Dust Bowl in the American Midwest. These projects introduced people and social issues as subject matter into her works, and she developed a compassionate, humanitarian approach to such photos. In 1935 Bourke-White met the Southern novelist Erskine Caldwell and collaborated on three illustrated books about, Southern sharecroppers, life in Czechoslovakia before the Nazi takeover, and industrialization of the United States.

Bourke-White covered World War II for Life and was the first woman photographer attached to the U.S. armed forces. She then covered the siege of Moscow and, toward the end of the war, she crossed the Rhine River into Germany with General George Patton’s Third Army troops. Her photographs of the emaciated inmates of concentration camps and of the corpses in gas chambers stunned the world.

After World War II, Bourke-White traveled to India to photograph Mahatma Gandhi and record the mass migration caused by the division of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. During the Korean War she worked as a war correspondent and traveled with South Korean troops.

Partition: Photograph Analysis

A. Observation

Study the photograph for 2 minutes. Form an overall impression of the image and then examine individual items in the image. Divide the image into four sections and study each to see what new details become visible. Use the chart below to write down your observations. List people, objects and activities in the image.

PEOPLE

OBJECTS

ACTIVITIES

B. Deductions

Based on your observations above, list three things you might deduce from this image.

C. Questions

What questions does this images raise in your mind? List two.

How might you go about finding answers to your questions?

What is this man doing? Why, if India is bigger and got a bigger share of the resources, is the Pakistan stack bigger? (This is the only photo not by MB White. It was taken by David Douglas Duncan. Harry Ransom Center. Source: Life Magazine, August 18, 1947)

What is happening here? Do you recognize any symbols that might indicate what group of people is in the train? The Crescent and Star are symbols of Islam- which direction do you think this train is going? Why kind of people are in the train? Can you tell if they are rich or poor?

BBC Caption: Millions left for their promised new homeland with smiles on their faces as trains left both India and Pakistan. This is a train to Pakistan being given a warm send-off. (http://news.bbc.co.uk)

What kind of people are shown in this slide? Can you tell if they are headed to India or Pakistan? There is nothing obvious in their appearance to tell us whether they are Muslims or Hindus, they don’t have any flags, or signs. Can you tell anything from the way they are dressed? What kinds of things are they carrying?

Who is being carried here? What kind of vehicle is in the background?

What about these people is different from the people in the previous pictures? Which direction are they going? Can you tell what the weather was like? Are they organized?

What is happening to this family? If the old man dies, what will happen to the children? What do their faces tell you?

BBC Caption: In a couple of months in the summer of 1947, a million people were slaughtered on both sides in the religious rioting. Here, bodies of the victims of rioting are picked up from a city street. (http://news.bbc.co.uk)

What are these men doing in this picture? What kind of people in India get cremated? Can you tell where this is happening?

There are human bodies in the streets, who or what is on the roof?

BBC Caption: With the tragic legacy of an uncertain future, a young refugee sits on the walls of Purana Qila, transformed into a vast refugee camp in Delhi. (http://news.bbc.co.uk)

BBC Caption: Families were cut to half as men were killed leaving women to fend for themselves. (http://news.bbc.co.uk)

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