Marie Hansen

Marie Hansen (1918–1969) was one of the first female photojournalists employed by Life magazine.

As an undergraduate at the University of Missouri in the late 1930s, Hansen joined the staff of a student newspaper and took photos to accompany news items.

The first woman photographer at Life was Margaret Bourke-White, who had been hired in 1936, left in 1940, and returned some years later.

The second was Hansel Meith who was hired in 1937.

In 1939, after graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the university's School of Journalism, she joined the newsroom of the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky.

Although hired as a reporter, she was soon reassigned as a photojournalist and afterwards was promoted to editor of the paper's rotogravure section.

She joined the magazine in 1941 and was based in Washington, D.C. during the rest of the decade.

Within a month of her appointment as staff photographer, she produced a photographic essay on the training of the first women officers in the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps.

In May of 1941, she left Louisville and traveled to New York City to become a researcher at Life magazine.

Midway in the following year, the editors granted her request to become a staff photographer.

Hansen was the third woman photographer Life had hired and one of two when her name first appeared on the masthead.

Hansen's first work appeared in the issue of August 10, 1942, where her photos of Congressman Hamilton Fish accompanied a scathing article describing him as thoroughly despised even by members of his own political party.

A few weeks later she was given a major spread in an article about the newly formed Women's Auxiliary Army Corps.

The article was a photographic essay of 34 images together with captions and a short informative text.

The image of a WAAC officer candidate (at right) comes from this shoot.

Hansen contributed two photos to the issue's next article, a narrative by a young woman, Frances Long, who had been interned in Manila for five months following the Japanese invasion.

Hansen was also given a brief profile in a box on the issue's contents page.

Included with a statement about her addition to the staff, was a photo showing her at work on the WAAC piece.

Two weeks later, Hansen's photos illustrated a two-page spread on wartime restrictions that would effectively outlaw the zoot suit.

The image of a young man in zoot suit (at left) comes from this shoot.

In mid-October, she contributed a full-page photo of a women's temperance union convention in an article on actions of the War Production Board to convert whiskey distillers into producers of industrial alcohol for wartime use; at the end of the month, photos she had taken showed women in war production jobs at the Sperry Gyroscope Company in Brooklyn and at a Curtiss-Wright plant in Paterson, N.J.

These early assignments showed the range of her work for the magazine, from elaborate photo spreads with minimal accompanying text to small groups of photos accompanying articles on various subjects, and from assignments where she was the only photographer to those where her work was one element in a larger framework of images.

Some of her work fell into the category of serious news, some had cultural significance, and some concerned entertainment and social events.

The issue of January 18, 1943 contained photos she had taken showing wartime security at the United States Capitol, as well as shots of a New Year's Eve party given by a wealthy Washingtonian at which the 157 guests included a number of plain servicemen.

The next issue contained her photographs of the singer Marian Anderson at her historic performance at DAR Constitution Hall.

In February, she traveled to Savannah, Georgia, to shoot a Truman Committee investigation of unwarranted expenses and extreme delays in construction of concrete barges that were needed as part of the war effort; in April, she produced photos for a piece on how the upper-crust inhabitants of Newport, Rhode Island were contributing to the war effort; and in July, she photographed participants in a conference to discuss ways to produce an enduring peace following the assumed successful conclusion of the war.

That summer, the magazine sent her to the Midwest on a major project to photograph the whole of the Missouri River.

Appearing on August 30, the photo essay included large aerial images along with an array of ground-level ones.

Her other Life photos in 1943 accompanied articles on a genealogical society's field trip to an old graveyard and on five movie stars (including Ava Gardner) modeling a range of "fantasy" fashions.

She left the magazine in 1944 and was subsequently used on a freelance basis until the early 1950s, when she was blacklisted after refusing to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

An article in the issue of January 3, 1944, entitled "Screen Test," described Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's attempt to capitalize on the popularity of women in traditionally masculine professions, particularly, as the author put it, "girl photographers", and the consequent screen test that Hansen was invited to take.

The article notes that she had been taking photos of a studio orchestra when she was interrupted by producer Joseph Pasternak.

It quotes her as saying, "I clambered dusty and disheveled from the catwalk. Pasternak came over and asked if I'd be interested in a screen test. I just laughed."

After determining that it was not a gag, Hansen and the rest of the Life team on the assignment agreed with the idea and set up to record the event in photos and text.

It's unclear how serious was the studio's offer and, in any event, Hansen ruled out any follow-up involving dramatic coaching and further tests saying, "I never have been more uncomfortable, for I was at the wrong end of the camera and the production crew was a skeptical audience."

During the rest of the year, her photos appeared frequently in photo essays, such as one on the discharge and return home of a war dog named Goofy, another on the impresario Sol Hurok, and a third entitled "How Will Negroes Vote?".

In April of 1945, when Harry S. Truman succeeded to the presidency, she was assigned to cover the White House and thereafter became one of the first women to join the White House News Photographers Association.

Later that year, Hanson took a photo of Dwight D. Eisenhower, which he subsequently used as a quasi-official portrait.

Her photos from that assignment were featured in an exhibition held by the New-York Historical Society in 2019.

Other major Life assignments included the reactions of Zoot suit lovers to wartime restrictions on extravagant clothing, the historic performance of Marian Anderson at DAR Constitution Hall, and a memorable photo of a billboard thermometer in Columbus Circle, Manhattan, displaying a temperature higher than 100°F.