Building on that work, she founded and led arts-based charity the Josephine Herrick Project, that is based in New York City and still teaches photography to veterans, the disabled and other underserved populations.
Herrick also served during World War II as a photographer on the United States’ Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb.
[5] Herrick's paternal lineage can be traced back to one of the oldest families settled in Massachusetts that fought in the colonial army during the American Revolution.
Her great-great-grandfather, Frances Herrick, commanded a regiment during the War of 1812 and was a large landowner and leading citizen of Lorain County, Ohio.
[7] Her maternal grandfather was Theodore M. Pomeroy, a businessman, lawyer and member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York State during the American Civil War.
[9][10] Clarence Hudson White was a self-taught photographer who greatly influenced the course of photography in the early 20th century as a teacher and mentor.
A number of his students went on to prominent and influential careers of their own including Margaret Bourke-White, Paul Outerbridge, Dorothea Lange and Anton Bruehl.
[11] Beginning in 1924 and continuing into the late 1930s, Herrick submitted photographs to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s May Show, an annual juried exhibition of the works of northeastern Ohio artists.
[13] In 1928, Herrick joined with Princess Miguel de Braganza to open a photography studio in New York City, specializing in portraits, landscapes and interiors.
At the start of World War II, Herrick was a commercial and fine art photographer in New York City and her nephews were Cleveland schoolboys.
Herrick's brother, Sherlock, and two of her nephews served overseas in the theaters of Africa and Europe during World War II.
In response, and impelled by converging advances in medicine, psychology and public policy, arts-based rehabilitation programs were established in the veterans’ hospitals.
[21][22] His efforts led to the creation in early 1944 of the U.S. Army Air Force Convalescent Training Center in Pawling, New York.
colleague Mary Steers had worked on the development of the atomic bomb as a part of the Manhattan Project based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
By the end of 1946, Herrick informed the Surgeon General of the War Department that photography programs had been provided in 19 different Army, Navy and Veterans hospitals.
A woman contributor at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington imagined a compact and movable darkroom.
Thinking of just one instance, years ago we discovered that a prize-winner was a polio patient, unable to use hands and arms, and held the tufts of cotton on sticks in her teeth to do the photo-oil-coloring.
[33] Herrick also joined with Margaret Bourke-White to help publicize the good work of VSP through several appearances on popular radio shows of the day including WNBC, WCBS, WMCA and WRCA.
[36] The exhibition featured photographs from Chautauqua, from a recent trip to England, Scotland and Wales, from New York City landmarks and from the gardens of Florida.