Jerome Zerbe - Breaking Into Photography

Breaking Into Photography

During the Depression, Zerbe landed his first major job, as art director of Parade, which was headquartered in his hometown, Cleveland. This was where he began his career of setting up portraits of the upper crust. He persuaded the wealthy local residents that it would help them to be photographed at their parties, which was simply not done at the time. He convinced them that it would assist the charity balls and fundraisers the leading society matrons were hosting. This paid off. He shot hundreds of debutantes, brides, newlyweds and formal dinners in North America and Europe.

Soon after, Harry Bull, the editor of Town & Country in New York, saw some of Zerbe’s society photos from Cleveland. He made him an offer to photograph ritzy parties in the Midwest. This led to his photos getting a wide audience, and offers of work from the capital of glitz -- Manhattan.

When Zerbe arrived in New York, he was in the right place at the right time. Prohibition had just ended and the nightlife was booming. The city had seven daily newspapers and three press associations. They all needed society photographs. Zerbe got himself hired by the Rainbow Room – on the 65th Floor of 30 Rockefeller Center – to set up fashionable dinner parties and photograph the guests. Zerbe was shocked that at the height of the Depression, unemployed readers craved to look at photos of high society types dressed in evening clothes and drinking champagne.