[1] He was instrumental in introducing the first 35mm camera in the US,[2] was an early director of photography at MOMA, and was the first to exhibit the Farm Security Administration photographers.

Known to his friends as Herc, short for Hercules, Morgan was a very large man who stood 6'7" with a corresponding athletic build.

[5][6] After graduating from Pomona College in 1923 with a degree in English, Morgan earned his living by writing freelance magazine articles and illustrating them with his photographs.

[12][10] The relationship would last a lifetime, with Willard photographing all aspects of construction of the Lovell house in the 1920s, writing articles about it,[13][14][15] and publishing Richard Neutra on Building: Mystery & Realities of the Site in 1951.

[23][2] In 1933, Morgan produced and curated the First Annual Leica Photographic Salon, one of the first 35mm exhibitions to be held outside a camera club.

With only four staff photographers,[26] Life originally based the majority of photo-illustrations on reader contributions, and Willard's department solicited and selected those images.

Yes, Mr. Bing, the father of the Oval Table Society threatened to pull out of the exhibition because I hung the FSA photos in the next gallery to his pictorial, mostly soft-focus pictures.

[34] In the October/November MoMA bulletin introducing the Center and its new Director, Willard writes, Photography has been a natural development of the mechanical age.

With such readily expressive medium, anyone can use the camera- for casual snapshots, for commercial gain, or for the photographs which have more than a transitory value ... something possessing greater depth of perception and meaning.

Camera review says, "Whether we call them snapshots or some other name, these pictures constitute the most vital, most dynamic, and most interesting and worthwhile photographic exhibition ever assembled by the Museum of Modern Art.

"[43] During Morgan's tenure, he actively expanded on MoMA's print collection, adding significant holdings of Farm Security Administration images and scientific photography, which he found revealed new possibilities to artistic photographers through their technical experiments.

[44] In a 1964 letter to Barbara Morgan, Nancy Newhall says, "At least it will go on record – something too often forgotten – that Herc was the first Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art and helped create the first Center.

Written and illustrated by specialists in the miniature camera field, Leica Manual went through fifteen editions and sold over a million copies.

From 1941 until 1943, Morgan was the general editor of The Complete Photographer, the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Photography published by the National Educational Alliance[clarification needed].

In 1951, Morgan published Richard Neutra on Building: Mystery & Realities of the Site, illustrated with architectural photographs by Julius Shulman.

The couple lived at 1 Lexington Avenue until 1941 when they moved into a modern house in Scarsdale, New York, designed by Swiss architect John Weber, with a photographic studio and darkroom for Barbara, a study for Willard, space for a print shop and museum, and a barn, chicken coop and rabbit house.

Morgan maintained relationships with Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Ansel Adams, Margaret Bourke-White, Berenice Abbott, Albert Boni, Julien Bryan and many others in the fields of photography and publishing.