Content, Marjorie (1895–1984)

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Content, Marjorie (1895–1984)

American photographer. Born in New York, New York, in 1895; died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 1984; married Harold Loeb, in 1914 (divorced 1921); married Michael Carr (an artist and set designer), in 1924 (died 1927); married Leon Fleischman, in 1929 (divorced 1934); married Jean Toomer (a poet and novelist), in 1934 (died 1967); children: (first marriage) Harold Albert (who legally changed his name to James); and Mary Ellen (who legally changed her name to Susan).

Marjorie Content, who did not begin photographing seriously until the late 1920s, was strongly influenced by Alfred Steiglitz and probably Consuelo Kanaga, who became her friend during the early 1920s. Specializing in portraits, still lifes, flowers, cityscapes, and landscapes, Content traveled intermittently in the West to photograph the life of Native Americans. Between 1933 and 1934, she photographed for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Several of her pictures appeared in the Parisian photography annual Photographie between 1932 and 1935. Content, who was married four times, moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with her fourth husband, the poet and novelist Jean Toomer, in 1934. There, she became a member of the Religious Society of Friends.

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