Marvin Breckinridge Patterson

Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson (October 2, 1905 – December 11, 2002), was an American

While broadcasting for the CBS World News Roundup in Berlin, Marvin met Jefferson Patterson. They married on June 20, 1940.

Education

When she was young, Marvin's family moved around a fair amount, and she attended "twelve schools before graduating from Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts" before eventually enrolling at Vassar College in 1923.^[1]

While a student at Vassar College, she helped found the National Student Federation of America,^[2] which was how she made an acquaintance with Edward R. Murrow. While a member of the National Student Federation, she attended the 1925 International Conference of Students in Copenhagen.^[3] Marvin graduated from Vassar College in 1927.^[3]

In an alumnae questionnaire from Vassar in 1939, Marvin wrote about her experience in college by denoting that, “I went to Vassar because my family wanted me to and had brought me up in that expectation all my life.” She also mentioned that “For the first time I heard other opinions than those expressed by my parents. I also got the ability to study for myself any subject in which I was interested, and learned how to go about such a study.” Furthermore, while at Vassar, Mary Marvin majored in French, minored in history and even served as president of North (now known as Jewett House) when she was a junior.^[1]

After her graduation from Vassar, she was a postgraduate student at the Clarence White School of Photography,

Mary began taking stills at the age of 9 and by the age of 15 was able develop her own photographs. In 1926, Mary received her first camera for Christmas while still attending Vassar College.[3]

Cinematography

Marvin’s interest in cinematography came about after her cousin suggested that she should study cinematography professionally.

Following The Forgotten Frontier, Marvin then produced and directed a piece called She Goes to Vassar, which was meant to showcase what goes on in college, especially for the women, and to also keep alumnae informed after they had graduated. It offered a new perspective and look into women students at all women's universities.[3] This film debuted at the Potomac School on December 19, 1931.^[1]

She also became involved in an amateur film group, called the Metropolitan Movie Club of New York.^[3]

Photojournalism

Marvin traveled extensively and published photographs from her world travels in magazines such as

During her time at CBS, Marvin met Edward R. Murrow who accompanied her on many of her assignments. Edward Murrow was also the same individual who encouraged her to speak in a deep voice while broadcasting and hired her as the first female news broadcaster for the CBS World News Roundup which was in Europe. She was one of only four photographers to be within England for the first months of the war. During this time, she traveled to London which is where she photographed the evacuation of English children. Marvin was also in Switzerland in 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland during World War II. Eventually, around fifty reports were made from seven countries in which Marvin was collaborating and producing.[8]

As a woman, Marvin was generally assigned to apolitical stories relating to lifestyle and culture. However, she still found ways to venture into more serious issues. One of her most famous broadcasts involved describing the official Nazi newspaper Voelkische Beobachter: "The motto of this important official paper is Freedom and Bread. There is still bread." The subtle implication that Germany was no longer free went over the heads of her German censors, and the comment was permitted to be broadcast.^[9]

Her career ended when she married U.S. diplomat Jefferson Patterson in June 1940.

Philanthropy

After her husband’s death in 1977, Mrs. Patterson began to give away many of her assets. MARPAT, a foundation she created, gave grants to "cultural, environmental, historical, and social service organizations".

In 1974 she donated her family estate in York, Maine (now listed on the National Register of Historic Places), to Bowdoin College for use as the Breckinridge Public Affairs Center. In 1983 she donated her and her husband's 550-acre (2.2 km²) farm in Maryland, thus creating the Patterson's Archeological District, which includes extensive Native American and American colonial sites.

Honors and accomplishments

In 1929, she became the first female pilot licensed in Maine.^[12]

The Forgotten Frontier is one of Mary's most notable works, as it was named to the National Film Registry in 1996. Her diaries which contained plan and ideas for The Forgotten Frontier were archived in the Library of Congress in the fall of 1929.^[3]

She received the Calvert Prize for Conservation in 1984.^[4]

In 1987, a study room was dedicated to Mary Breckinridge in the Department of Special Collections at the University of Kentucky. The room now stands as the Breckinridge Research Room in the Special Collections Research Center in the William T. Young Library.^[4][13]

She received honorary doctorates from Bowdoin College and Georgetown University.^[4]

She served on boards and committees for the following organizations:

On December 11, 2002, at the age of ninety-seven, Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson died.[1] She died at her Washington home from pneumonia while also having cerebral vascular disease.^[11]

Eight years after her passing, the Library of Congress recognized her wartime photojournalism and broadcasts along with seven other female journalists and photographers which included: Clare Booth Luce, Janet Flanner, Dorothea Lange and May Craig. The exhibit that showcased these women’s works was named Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers and Broadcasters During World War II.^[1] Many of Marvin's photographs taken while she was in Kentucky in 1937 are considered “classics” and have been shown in many exhibitions.^[11]

Footnotes