Life magazine coverage of the New Hampshire primary, March, 1952

The spread ran for five pages.  In total there were 21 photographs.  Fourteen of the shots were Lisa Larsen’s; seven were taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt.  The three largest photographs were Larsen’s. One of them opens and another closes the photo essay.   Larsen’s other photographs appear in a variety of sizes.  Two of her large photographs and a pair of the medium-sized shots were taken in Canterbury, NH during a rally for the Eisenhower slate of delegates.  One of those Canterbury photographs includes an image of then-Governor Sherman Adams, running on the slate to be pledged to Eisenhower at the Republican convention.  Larsen also shot photographs devoted to following the campaign work of two women:  Elizabeth Bradley and Grace Sterling.  There were four photographs of each woman carrying out campaign activities in their communities.  Bradley was working for the Eisenhower campaign; Sterling was allied with the other Republican contender in the primary, Taft, and running as an alternate delegate in the election.  The final picture in the coverage included a large image of Samuel Marden, a picturesque local who had vowed he wouldn’t cut his beard until a Republican was elected.  After four terms of FDR and one for Truman, it had been a twenty-year-long wait.

Larsen’s work was thorough.  For every photograph that was used in the Life coverage several dozen similar photographs were passed over.  Several events that Larsen photographed were not represented at all in the final choices to be published in the magazine.  To date, Google has scanned and posted more than three hundred prints that Larsen shot while on assignment in New Hampshire.  At the moment, the record of Eisenstaedt’s work on this project in New Hampshire is limited to the originals of the seven photographs that were published.

Click here to view the original Life photo essay which began on page 25.