INSCRIBED BY MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE, FIRST EDITION OF HALFWAY TO FREEDOM, WITH OVER 110 PHOTOGRAPHIC ILLUSTRATIONS

BOURKE-WHITE, Margaret. Halfway to Freedom. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949. Octavo, original half black cloth, cartographic endpapers, original photographic dust jacket. $1100.

First edition of Bourke-White’s coverage of India’s passage to independence, inscribed on the colophon page to the president of the University of Akron and his wife, “For Mr. and Mrs. Norman P. Auburn, It’s been the greatest pleasure to be here at the University of Cincinnati, Sincerely, Margaret Bourke-White,” featuring over 110 photographic images, including her famous photograph of Gandhi seated at his spinning wheel.

Called "one of the world's great artists" by Alfred Stieglitz in 1932, Margaret Bourke-White "epitomized the dynamic spirit of her age… She was generally the 'first woman photographer' at whatever it was she was covering, and she covered the most important events of the mid-century" (McDarrah, 52-53). A photographer at Fortune and Time for decades, she was also a staff photographer at Life and "one of the most successful women in America" (Parr & Badger I:140).. Highlighting Bourke-White's major achievements "was her coverage of India's emergence as an independent nation" (ANB). This copy is memorably inscribed to the co-founder of Ohio's University of Akron, who also served as its president for 20 years. Bourke-White, though born in New York, had strong ties to Ohio. "She got her start in Cleveland in 1927 when she opened a studio in her one-room apartment" (Cincinnati Enquirer), soon producing photographs of workers at Otis Steel that attracted the attention of Fortune, which hired her in 1929. Bookplate of recipient. Bookseller ticket.

Interior fine, only lightest edge-wear to about-fine book; slight chipping, soiling to extremely good dust jacket. A highly desirable inscribed copy.