She married in 1938 in New York City to Frederic McMichael Kirkland, the son of a wealthy Philadelphia Main Line family.
[5] Kirkland joined Life magazine after working as a correspondent in the Pacific during World War II.
She was the first fashion editor to do multiple-model sittings, in which a dozen or so models would be stretched across one and even two pages; her innovation was widely copied.
After she left the magazine, she wrote a book about designer Claire McCardell and contributed articles to the RAM Report, a monthly trade journal.
[7] In July 1954 in Rome, stylists including Emilio Schuberth, Vincenzo Ferdinandi, and the Sorelle Fontana, awarded Kirkland a prize for her role as ambassador of Italian fashion in the United States during the "Alta Moda in Castel Sant'Angelo", in the evocative setting of that famous castle.