Frances Cooke Macgregor
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Frances Cooke Macgregor was born on April 21, 1906 in Portland, Oregon to Charles and Margaret Cooke. She was raised in San Rafael, California by her parents, who both worked with guide dogs for the blind. She attended the Univeristy of California-Berkley, graduating in 1927 with a degree in economics. and then married anthropologist Gordon Macgregor.
Frances married Gordon Macgregor who worked for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. This required him and his wife to move around the United States. Frances was intrigued by what she saw in the many reservations the two visited and, being a professional photographer, she decided to chronicle her travels by taking photographs. These images resulted in her 1941 book titled Twentieth Century Indians.
In 1936 Frances moved to Hingham, Massachusetts in order to live with her sister-in-law while her husband continued to travel. The house was located on Stoddard Road. Frances found the atmosphere in Hingham to be very different from that of the West. She felt that the people were more formal and staid. Frances enjoyed more informal activities - fishing, bicycling, and canoeing - which she continued to do while living in Hingham.
Frances saw her entrance into this new environment as an opportunity to chronicle the town in a photographic book. She wanted to take a sociological look at the city by photographing every day residents and the different social roles they played. In 1941 this project resulted in Frances collaborating with her friend Eleanor Roosevelt to create the book This Is America. It featured photographs by Macgregor and text by Roosevelt. Ultimately, the book was less a sociological work and more of a political tool. It depicted Hingham as a typical town in the United States, the type of place worth fighting for in World War II.
Still, Macgregor became fascinated with anthopology and sociology, obtaining a degree in both subjects in 1947 from the University of Missouri. She became a research assistant for Margaret Mead and the two collaborated on a book about Balinese children. Macgregor then conducted research for her Ph.D. at the NYU College of Medicine on the pyschological and social effects of facial deformities and plastic surgery.
She worked as a professor at the Cornel University Medical and Nursing School from 1954 to 1968, during which time she wrote a textbook entitled Social Science in Nursing. After 1968 she moved to New York in order to teach at the New York University Medical Center's Institute of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery.
Frances Cooke Macgregor pioneered the field of research into facial deformities and plastic surgery. She was the first to complete a major publication on the subject and her continued research projects made her a worldwide authority on the subject. She was also one of the original founders of New York's Society for the Rehabilitation of the Facial Disfigured.
By the time she retired, Macgregor was a nationally recognized social scientist and authority on such subjects as facial disfigurement. She moved to Carmel, California in 1991 and died there on Christmas Eve in 2001.
This article in the Hingham Journal details the surprise visit to Hingham by Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Macgregor shared a publisher who insisted that they jointly contribute to the book. Macgregor requested that Roosevelt visit Hingham so she could see the town, and subject of the book, in person.
Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 until 1945 when her husband, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died in office. Although a very active and influential First Lady, Eleanor found time to focus on her personal hobbies, including writing.
This Is America was published in 1941. Subjects of the photographs in the book include buildings around town, people, fields, and monuments. All aspects of Hingham were included whether they were strong representations of the town or not. This made it seem as if Hingham was the ideal town that could be found in any part of America.
Eleanor Roosevelt referred to Hingham's Main Street as "the prettiest Main Street in America." She and Frances Cooke Macgregor would become good friends during the creation of their book This Is America. They often visited one another in New York City, taking time out of their busy lives to stay in touch.
Macgregor often discussed the need to make more resources available for those with facial deformities and disfigurements, especially information on how to seek psychological help and where to go for plastic surgery. She felt that people with these disfigurements were isolated and therefore developed psychological problems. She advocated for less of a societal emphasis on beauty and more on personality.