Margaret Hall (photographer)

Margaret Hall (1876 – 1963) was a volunteer for the American Red Cross during World War I and a photographer who captured images of the conflict.

Margaret Hall
Margaret Hall in Red Cross uniform, August 1918
Born1876 
Massachusetts 
Died1963  (aged 86–87)

Margaret Hall was a native of Newton, Massachusetts. She was from an affluent family and later inherited and ran her father's woolen mill.[1] In 1899, she graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in history and political science. She was a suffragist who marched in the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession and also participated in the 1913 Ladies Garment Strike.[2]

At the age of 42, she sailed to France as a volunteer for the American Red Cross. From September 1918 to July 1919, she worked about fifteen to twenty miles behind the front lines, at a canteen near a railroad junction in Châlons serving food to soldiers. Though photographs and diaries in the war zone were prohibited, Hall took hundreds of photographs and wrote extensively about her experience.[1][3][4] It is speculated she used a small Vest Pocket Kodak and a larger camera with a tripod.[5]

Following the war she continued to volunteer for various causes, including Armenian Genocide survivors.[2]

In 2014, the Massachusetts Historical Society published her work as Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country: The World War I Memoir of Margaret Hall.[6]

  • Margaret Hall (American, 1876–1963). Grave in "No Man's Land," 1918–1919
  • Margaret Hall (American, 1876–1963). German Barbed Wire and Trench, Champagne, 1918–19
  • Margaret Hall (American, 1876–1963). Cloth Hall and Cathedral, Ypres, Tommies, 1919

References
  1. "WWI Exhibit Focuses On Newton Woman Who Volunteered In War Effort". www.wbur.org. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  2. "Margaret Hall and Bryn Mawr: On the Front Lines of the Great War : Who was Margaret Hall? | The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education". greenfield.brynmawr.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  3. "Photographs from the World War I Memoir of Margaret Hall - Massachusetts Historical Society". www.masshist.org. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  4. Farrell, Jennifer. "One Hundred Years of the Great War through the Eyes of Four Female Artists". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  5. "Margaret Hall and Bryn Mawr: On the Front Lines of the Great War : Looking through the Lens: Hall's Photographs | The Albert M. Greenfield Digital Center for the History of Women's Education". greenfield.brynmawr.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
  6. "Massachusetts Historical Society: Letters and Photographs from the Battle Country". www.masshist.org. Retrieved 2020-09-08.
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