Born in Strasburg,
Virginia, on August 23, 1905, Abbie Rowe spent his career in government
service. Although partly crippled by polio, Rowe was first hired
in 1930 with the Bureau of Public Roads. He went on to become
a noted photographer for the National Capital Parks of the National
Park Service.
When he happened
to photograph First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt riding on horseback
along the Mount Vernon Highway in March 1938, she wrote of the
incident in her newspaper column "My Day". Subsequently,
Rowe appealed directly to her for a change of job status because
of his difficulty performing heavy manual labor. He was eventually
reassigned as a photographer for the National Capital Parks of
the National Park Service. Many of his photographs documented
public buildings and roads in and around the nation's capital.
In December
1941, as America entered World War II, Abbie Rowe received a
challenging new assignment. At the request of President Roosevelt,
the National Park Service assigned Rowe to provide photographic
coverage of the President's activities, particularly those that
occurred away from the White House. Gradually, his duties were
expanded to include the documentation of events that took place
within the White House. By the Truman
years, he was called upon to document the President at many
official ceremonies, both in and away from the White House.
His work continued through the Eisenhower, Kennedy,
and into the Johnson
Administrations prior to his death in April 1967.
His
Legacy
Abbie Rowe's
photographs documenting the activities of the Presidents form
an invaluable source of historical material in the public domain.
While many of the activities he photographed also were being captured
by the cameras of various news agencies, Rowe's photographs offer
a continuity of event coverage over time.
But unique
among the photographers who covered the White House, Rowe's
contribution extends to documenting the physical structures
of the Capital City, and the White House in particular. The
renovation of the White House during the Truman Administration
offers a particularly important case in point.
Abbie Rowe's
photographs of the White House renovation
form a unique visual record of one of the nation's most important
architectural and engineering challenges of the time. These
photographs, as well as the thousands of others Rowe produced
to document the activities of five Presidents, form an invaluable
resource of visual images in the public domain which are of
lasting significance as permanent records of the historical
and architectural heritage of the White House and the presidents
who lived there.
