Diana Mara Henry Collection (20Th Century Photographer)

Special Collections and University Archives : University Libraries Diana Mara Henry Collection (20th Century Photographer) 1934-2014 110 boxes (97 linear ft.) Call no.: PH 051 Collection overview Recognized for her coverage of historic events and personalities, the photographer Diana Mara Henry took the first steps toward her career in 1967 when she became photo editor for the Harvard Crimson. After winning the Ferguson History Prize and graduating from Harvard with a degree in government in 1969, Henry returned to New York to work as a researcher with NBC News and as a general assignment reporter for the Staten Island Advance, but in 1971 she began to work as a freelance photographer. Among many projects, she covered the Democratic conventions of 1972 and 1976 and was selected as official photographer for both the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year and the First National Women's Conference in 1977, and while teaching at the International Center for Photography from 1974-1979, she developed the community workshop program and was a leader in a campaign to save the Alice Austin House. Her body of work ranges widely from the fashion scene in 1970s New York and personal assignments for the family of Malcolm Forbes and other socialites to political demonstrations, cultural events, and photoessays on one room schoolhouses in Vermont and everyday life in Brooklyn, France, Nepal, and Bali. Widely published and exhibited, her work is part of permanent collections at institutions including the Schlesinger Library, the Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and the National Archives. The Henry collection is a rich evocation of four decades of political, social, and cultural change in America beginning in the late 1960s as seen through the life of one photojournalist. This diverse body of work is particularly rich in documenting the women's movement, second wave feminism, and the political scene in the 1970s. Henry left a remarkable record of women in politics, with dozens of images of Bella Abzug, Elizabeth Holtzman, Shirley Chisholm, Liz Carpenter, Betty Friedan, Jane Fonda, and Gloria Steinem. The collection includes images of politicians at all levels of government, celebrities, writers, and scholars, and coverage of important events including demonstrations by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the Women's Pentagon Action, and marches for the ERA. The many hundreds of exhibition and working prints in the collection are accompanied by the complete body of Henry's photographic negatives and slides, along with an array of ephemera, correspondence, and other materials relating to her career. Copyright for Henry's images are retained by her until 2037. See similar SCUA collections: Peace Photographs Photojournalism Political activism Politics and governance Vermont Vietnam War Women Women and feminism Background on Diana Mara Henry Background on Diana Mara Henry Diana Mara Henry is best known for her acclaimed photojournalism documenting social and political activism of the late 1960s to the mid 1980s, perhaps most notably the women's movement and the fight to end the Vietnam War. Over the years, many have recognized Henry's talent for capturing powerful images that have the potential to inspire, prompt reflection, and promote social change. Yet while undoubtedly one of her major achievements, Henry's political photography represents just part of her extensive résumé. In her decades-long photography career, Henry has employed her camera to document a variety of subjects beyond American political activism, has worked as a photography instructor, and has pursued professional ventures in foreign language and business as well as extensive scholarship of topics of repression and resistance in World War II. Recognizing the multilayered nature of Diana Mara Henry's professional life is critical to understanding the full extent of her career achievements. Diana Mara Henry at the Harvard Diana Mara Henry was born on June 20, 1948 in Crimson, 1967 Cincinnati, Ohio, the only child of Carl and Edith Photo by Charles Hagen (Entratter) Henry. Henry's parents were the founders and owners of the Lucky Stride Shoe Company, headquarted in Maysville, Kentucky, for which Edith Henry also served as designer. Henry spent the first years of her life in Cincinnati, where she attended the College Preparatory School for Girls from 1953 to 1959. Henry's early life also had a substantial international influence; as a child she traveled to Europe with her parents on multiple occasions and, under the tutelage of her governess, learned to speak fluent French. In 1959, when Diana was eleven, the Henrys moved from Cincinnati to Manhattan. Here, she became a student at the Lycée Français de New York where she majored in Classics (Greek and Latin). A year before graduating from the Lycée in 1965, Henry went on to Radcliffe College where she earned an A.B. in Government with a minor in History in 1969. While a college student, Henry began to avidly pursue photojournalism, serving as photo-editor of the Harvard Crimson from her sophomore through her senior years, and as a photographer for the Fogg Museum at Harvard, the Harvard Alumni Bulletin and Harvard Today. Additionally, she captured publicity shots of the 1968 Eugene McCarthy campaign for The Cambridge Chronicle and completed photography assignments for Time and Newsweek. During her college years, Henry also distinguished herself beyond the world of photography; for one of her classes, Henry penned an essay entitled "The Concept of Time and History," which earned Harvard's prestigious Ferguson History Prize and was published in a 1967 issue of the periodical The Journal for the Study of Cycles. In the summer of 1968, prior to beginning her senior year at Radcliffe, Henry worked as a publicity assistant on location for the Hollywood film If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. Following her graduation from Radcliffe in 1969, Henry returned to New York City to pursue her interest in journalism through work as a General Assignment Reporter for The Staten Island Advance, a metropolitan daily newspaper. Prior to her position at the Advance, she worked as a researcher for NBC under the direction of television producer Robert Northshield, where she contributed to the network documentary From Here to the Seventies. Although Henry was employed at The Staten Island Advance for only about one year, from 1969 to 1970, one of her experiences as a reporter would have a lasting impact on her professional life. An assignment for the Advance took Henry to the Alice Austen House, a museum commemorating the life and work of E. Alice Austen, one of the foremost female photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An up-and- coming female photographer herself, Henry was inspired by the mission of the Alice Austen House and became the Vice President and Director of Programs for the museum in 1980. In her capacity as an administrator for the Alice Austen House, Henry played an instrumental role in a successful effort to lobby the New York City government for more than $1 million dollars to restore the museum's house and grounds. It was at around the same time that she was working for the Advance that Henry also began to pursue a career in freelance photojournalism with a focus on news and documentary photography. In this capacity, Henry would go on to chronicle many iconic aspects of the 1970s sociopolitical landscape, including the presidential campaigns of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter and the activities of noted activists and politicians such as Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Al Lowenstein, Elizabeth Holtzman, Jane Fonda, Liz Carpenter, and Bella Abzug. Henry also served as the official photographer for the President's Commission on International Women's Year and for the First National Women's Conference. In Houston in 1977, Henry captured a host of now-iconic images of second-wave feminism, including a photograph of Betty Friedan, Billie Jean King, Susan B. Anthony II, and Bella Abzug, Sylvia Ortiz, Peggy Kokernot and Michelle Cearcy bearing the torch that had been relayed from Seneca Falls for the opening of the conference. Another notable aspect of Henry's political photography from this period was her work documenting the demonstrations of activist organizations such as the Women's Pentagon Action Committee, Women Office Workers/Nine-to-Five, pro-Equal Rights Amendment organizations, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). Henry's interest in veterans' issues led her to photograph the 1971 demonstrations on Boston Common and at the ITT Building on Park Avenue in 1973, and the 1981 hunger strike at the Wadsworth Veterans' Administration Hospital in Los Angeles, which sought to call attention to the inadequate treatment of Vietnam veterans suffering from the effects of Agent Orange. Henry's coverage of antiwar activism and veterans' experiences earned her the praise and admiration of Vietnam veteran and Born on the Fourth of July author Ron Kovic, who wrote to Henry: "I believe these photos will last and many years from now be looked at and studied just as Matthew Brady's haunting Civil War photos are today." At the same time that she was utilizing her photojournalism to chronicle social and political issues, Henry was also using her camera to explore the worlds of cosmopolitan fashion and high society. In the 1970s, Henry photographed events such as Fashion Week in New York City and captured images of famous personalities including designer Diane Von Furstenberg, IBM heiress and bookseller Jeanette Watson Sanger, and writer/social commentator Fran Lebowitz. She also photographed high profile cat shows, including the Empire Cat Show in New York. Starting in the 1970s and continuing into the 1980s, Henry served as personal and family photographer for Malcolm Forbes, documenting family weddings and other special events for the famous Forbes magazine owner and completing photography assignments for organizations that Forbes actively supported, such as the Hayden Planetarium and the Victorian Society.

Load more