Bourke-White achieved many firsts in her career: She was the first staff photographer at Fortune magazine (1929), the first Western photographer allowed into the USSR (1930), the first American woman credentialed to work in combat zones during WWII, and an image by her was on the cover of the first issue of Life magazine (1936).

Her images for early client Otis Steel Company predate all of these accomplishments, however. Bourke-White’s first attempts at this subject failed to capture the bright molten steel and deep shadows at the same time, so she went back with a new magnesium flash. The striking and beautiful images she composed, like Four Thousand Fahrenheit, in which a waterfall of molten slag overflows its ladle, reveal a photographer who has already mastered her craft. Otis Steel was so pleased that they published a book of the work for stockholders called The Story of Steel (1929).

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)