Therese Bonney

Women Come to the Front:: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During World War II

War's mindless uprooting of innocent civilians provided the principal subject for photographer Therese Bonney (1894-1978) during World War II. Bonney's images of homeless children and adults on the backroads of Europe touched millions of viewers in the United States and abroad.

Educated at Berkeley, Harvard, Columbia, and the Sorbonne, Bonney settled in Paris in 1919 to pursue photography and promote cultural exchange between France and the United States. The outbreak of World War II appalled Bonney, who believed the conflict threatened European civilization itself. Of her "truth raids" into the countryside to document the horror of war, Bonney said: "I go forth alone, try to get the truth and then bring it back and try to make others face it and do something about it."

Not content with publishing solely in mass-circulation newspapers and magazines, Bonney sought other opportunities to present her work. She published the photo-essay books War Comes to the People (1940) and Europe's Children (1943) and mounted one-woman shows at the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and dozens of museums overseas. Bonney's concept for a film about children displaced by war became the Academy Award- winning movie, The Search (1948). A media star herself, Bonney was the heroine of a wartime comic book, "Photofighter."

Bonney's Account of War in Finland

"How Peace Came to Finland,"
Photogravure Section,
Washington Post,
December 8, 1940
Serial and Government
Publications Division (6)

Solo "Truth Raids" Won Public Spotlight

Dorothy Dunbar Bromley,
"Therese Bonney Brings Back Pictorial
Record of Europe's Tragic Children,"
New York Herald Tribune,
February 28, 1943, Section V, p. 3
Serial and Government
Publications Division (7)

"A Woman Needs to Wear Pants in War"

[image not available online]
[Bonney in ski suit], c. 1940
New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (8)

"Truth Raid" Photos Debuted
at Library of Congress

Invitation to Exhibition Opening,
November 15, 1940
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division (9)

Bonney's Book Based on Exhibitions

Therese Bonney,
War Comes to the People,
London: The Penndock Press, 1944
(left page) (right page)
General Collections (11)

War's Effect on Civilians
Explored in Exhibits

Therese Bonney,
[Took Refuge in Barns], c. 1940
Prints and Photographs Division
Reproduced courtesy of the Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley (12)

Bonney Twice Decorated for Military Bravery

[Therese Bonney wearing medal],
February 1942
New York World-Telegram
& Sun Collection,
Prints and Photographs Division (14)
LC-USZ62-113325

Comic Based on Bonney's Adventures

"Photofighter,"
True Comics,
July 1944, pp. 14, 15, 16
Serial and Government
Publications Division (15)
LC-USZC4-9007
LC-USZC4-9008
LC-USZC4-9009

Aid for War Victims

Therese Bonney,
[So few have understood,
the Quakers, Red Crosses---nuns,]
c. 1940
Prints and Photographs Division (16)
Reproduced courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

The Price of War for Children

Therese Bonney,
[Timidly---they climb the walls to
would-be homes in gutted houses]
c. 1940
Prints and Photographs Division (17)
Reproduced courtesy of the Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley

Lives Uprooted by War

Therese Bonney,
[Meals cooked in the fields,]
c. 1940
Prints and Photographs Division (18)
Reproduced courtesy of the Bancroft Library,
University of California, Berkeley

Bonney's Book of Photos of Children

Therese Bonney,
Europe's Children,
New York: Plantin Press, 1943
Rare Book and
Special Collections Division (19)

Bonney Story on the Big Screen

Advertising poster for
The Search,
Loew's Inc., 1948
Prints and Photographs Division (21)