U.S.S. Akron
“Any important art coming out of the industrial age will draw inspiration from industry, because industry is alive and vital. The beauty of industry lies in its truth and simplicity; every line is essential and therefore beautiful.”—Margaret Bourke-White
STRIKING SIGNED SILVER GELATIN PRINT PHOTOGRAPH OF THE U.S.S. AKRON, HOUSED IN ITS ORIGINAL RIVETED DURALUMIN GOODYEAR PRESENTATION FRAME MADE FROM AIRSHIP CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL.
Margaret Bourke-White broke through as a photographer of America’s rising industry.
In the initial stages of her industrial photography, the worker played a secondary role to the machine, serving primarily as a point of reference for mechanical vastness. Her clients were many: she was commissioned by Henry Ford to photograph the Ford River Rouge Plant, and by Time magazine for the highly sought-after assignment of documenting Soviet industry. With the worsening of the Great Depression, Bourke-White’s focus would eventually transition toward the human subject, but in the early 1930s, her work reflected American enthusiasm for the incoming machine age.
In 1931, Goodyear commissioned Bourke-White to photograph the completion of the U.S.S. Akron airship. The interwar period brought increased interest in the development of airships as technologies of war, travel, and trade. The U.S. Navy contracted with Goodyear-Zeppelin to build the Akron; to support its airship program, Goodyear-Zeppelin constructed the vast Goodyear Airdock, completed in 1929, then the largest building in the world without interior supports. The Akron itself was the largest flying object in the world at that time, measuring 785 feet in length.
The Akron would have a short and tragic career. In 1932, the aircraft flew cross-country from New Jersey to California. Low on fuel, and with its helium warmed by the California sun, the Akron became dangerously light. Forced to make an impromptu mooring stop without proper dockage equipment, it lowered its mooring cables to a group of waiting U.S. Navy sailors. When the cables were cut to prevent the ship from nose-standing, the airship rose suddenly, tossing sailors as it ascended and carrying three men up to a height of 360 feet. Two let go and fell to their deaths. One sailor, Apprentice Seaman C. M. “Bud” Cowart, held on for two hours at 2,000 feet before he was finally pulled aboard the airship, where he survived.
Worse was to come. In 1933, as the Akron flew over the Atlantic Ocean, it encountered a storm off New Jersey. Enveloped in fog, it went into a rapid nose-dive; the lower fin struck the sea, and the craft disappeared beneath the waves, weighed down by water. It was the worst airship disaster in history, killing 73 sailors – even deadlier than the Hindenburg. Most were lost not to the sinking itself but to drowning and hypothermia while awaiting rescue. Only three survived. The Akron’s loss led to the mandatory inclusion of life jackets on naval vessels. With the rise of larger airplanes, the Navy ended its pursuit of military airships.
At the time of its completion, however, the Akron stood as a massive feat of engineering, and Bourke-White’s portrait emphasized the overwhelming scale of both the ship and its hangar. She approached industrial photography with the sensibility of fine art, concentrating on the stark contrasts of the machine age, and the repetitive, dynamic forms of vast production. For her, industry was a staging ground for dramatic pattern, subtle light, and innovative method, enabling a new kind of beauty born from technology.
Bourke-White’s photograph is housed in its original riveted duralumin frame, the lightweight aircraft alloy identified on the presentation plaque as having been used in the girder construction of the U.S.S. Akron. Awarded to McLaughlin & Barnett, winner of the Third Annual Goodyear Dealers Zeppelin Race, a Goodyear dealer sales contest held in July–August 1931, the piece is far more than a framed photograph: it is a striking Goodyear presentation object, combining Bourke-White’s monumental image of the airship with a frame materially tied to the engineering achievement it celebrates. The result is an unusually compelling fusion of modern photography, aviation history, industrial design, and corporate promotion at the height of America’s airship age.
Signed by Bourke-White in ink (“Bourke White”) at the lower right of the image.
Warm-toned silver print, the image measuring 16 3/4x22 1/4 inches (42.5x55.9 cm), framed in the original duralumin frame to a total size of 20 1/4 x 26 inches (51.4x66 cm.) Slight silvering and rippling around edges (as often); a few stray spots. A beautiful print in exceptionally good condition.
References:
Bourke-White, Margaret. Portrait of Myself. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.
“USS Akron and the Rise, Fall and Rise of Airships,” Ohio Memory, Ohio History Connection, September 23, 2016
Vicki Goldberg, “Woman of Steel: Margaret Bourke-White Made Industrial Photography a Powerful Art Form in the 1920s and 1930s,” American Heritage Magazine 2, no. 3 (Spring 1987).
Price: $7,200 .