Born Springfield, Ohio, 1898; moved to New York in 1918, studied in sculpture in Europe in 1920s; began involvement with photography in 1923 when worked as darkroom assistant for Man Ray; opened her own studio in Paris in 1926 and a second in 1927, photographing personalities in the literary and artistic world; returned to New York in 1929 where she began to document the buildings of the city; as well as photography she developed a number of items of photographic equipment including the 'autopole'