A December 1943 group photo in LIFE
Toronto. Photographers both professional and amateur elect or are prodded to record groups – organizations, schools, military, bands, special events, etc.
Some photographers even specialized and used special cameras (e.g. Cirkut) or extreme wide angle lenses (e.g. Zeiss Protars) to capture a group.
Sometimes a stairway was used to ensure everyone in the group could see the camera and be seen. Our late editor, Bob Lansdale, himself a professional photographer, made use of stairways in this manner. Or a high elevation for the photographer might work as shown in the LIFE photograph at left of the 1943 NAM meeting.
George Dunbar writes, “Here’s a great historical photo of the first woman among her peers, all men. Life Magazine published this photo of a National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) meeting in New York in December 1943. The amazing image (80 years ago) identifies only one woman, Ruth Leach (7th from right in middle row). She was appointed as the first female executive and vice president of IBM in 1943.”
George’s comments brought to mind the terribly long and still ongoing struggle women in business face. When I entered the work force, jobs (and pay) were split into male and female. I worked for a very proactive company that eliminated the male/female job ratings and slowly began encouraging women to reach higher management ranks. The bias of the older work staff made it a tough and lengthy struggle.
