Toni Frissell (1907-1988) was born into a privileged Manhattan family. She used her background of wealth and social position to build a career as a fashion photographer for Vanity Fair, Vogue and Town and Country. She was one of the first photographers to move fashion photography out of the studio, transforming the way fashion and the fashionable were presented in print.

By the end of the 1930s, as the situation in Europe became more tense, Frissell became anxious to photograph something other than fashion and celebrities, writing “I became so frustrated with fashions that I wanted to prove to myself that I could do a real reporting job.” Even with her connections and her track record as a magazine photographer, she was unable to get the type of long-term newspaper or magazine assignment that would allow her to be accredited as a war correspondent.

Since she couldn’t get to the front, she used her social connections to pursue wartime assignments with agencies such as the U.S. Office of War Information, the American Red Cross and the Women’s Army Corps. Many of her assignments during this period were photo-reports of society women working for the Red Cross or the federal government—probably not as big a change from fashion photography as she had hoped for. There were exceptions. In 1942, in her role as pictorial historian for the American Red Cross, she covered Eleanor Roosevelt’s Red Cross trip to England and Scotland. One of her most important assignments was a story on Oveta Culp Hobby, the first director of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACS). *

It was 1945, when the war was winding down, Frissell got a chance to visit the frontlines as part of a group organized by the Writers’ War Board.** While in Italy, she had the opportunity to photograph the Tuskegee Airman during their daily activities. She was the only professional photographer to photograph the unit, and her work is an invaluable record of their service.

After the war, Frissell returned to fashion photography, including a stint as the first woman staff photographer at Sports Illustrated.

*And later the first secretary of the new Department of Health, Education and Welfare, making her the second woman to hold a cabinet position. So many amazing historical women, so little time to write about them.

**The Writers’ War Board was a private organization devoted to producing domestic propaganda during World War II.  Establish by mystery novelists Rex Stout at the request of the U.S. Treasury Department soon after the United States entered the war, its original purpose was to organize prominent writers to support the sale of war bonds.  It quickly moved beyond its original mission, matching writers with government agencies, and quasi-government agencies, that needed help in shaping their story.  Sigrid Schultz, for example, wrote several stories about Nazi Germany for children’s magazines at the request of the Writer’s War Board.  (Not her finest work, I must say.)