Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 30, 2026

Harrison Forman

Harrison Forman was an American photographer and journalist. He wrote for The New York Times and National Geographic. During World War II he reported from China and interviewed Mao Zedong.

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Harrison Forman
BornJune 15, 1904
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
DiedJanuary 31, 1978(1978-01-31) (aged 73)

Harrison Forman (June 15, 1904 – January 31, 1978)1 was an American photographer and journalist. He wrote for The New York Times and National Geographic.2: 68  During World War II he reported from China and interviewed Mao Zedong.

Biography

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in Oriental Philosophy. Forman and his wife Sandra had a son, John, who later changed the spelling of his name to Foreman, and a daughter, Brenda-Lu Forman, who collaborated with her father on one of his books, and also wrote a series of children's books on given names.34

His collection of diaries and fifty thousand photographs are now at American Geographical Society Library at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.567

Forman who travelled to the Tibetan Plateau in 1932 and filmed the Panchen Lama at the Labrang Monastery8 in Xiahe, Gansu province.

Forman wrote the 1936 book, Through Forbidden Tibet: An Adventure into the Unknown.2: 68 

He served as the Tibetan technical expert on Frank Capra's Lost Horizon film of 1937.9

In 1943, Forman was among the foreign journalists who established the Foreign Correspondents' Association in China.2: 68–69 

In 1944, he visited Yan'an and interviewed Chinese Communist Party leaders including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De.2: 69 

Books

  • 1931: Do You Want to Fly?. Shanghai: The Comacrib Press
  • 1936: Through Forbidden Tibet. New York: Longmans & Co.; London: Longmans, Green
  • 1942: Horizon Hunter: the adventures of a modern Marco Polo. London: Robert Hale
  • 1945: Report from Red China. New York: Holt
  • 1948: Changing China. New York: Crown Publishers
  • 1952: How to make Money with your Camera. New York: McGraw-Hill
  • 1964: The Land and People of Nigeria. Philadelphia: Lippincott (with Brenda-Lu Forman)
References

References

  1. "Forman, Harrison, 1904-1978. NWDA ( 1904 - 1978)". virginia.edu.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  2. Li, Ying (2024). Red Ink: A History of Printing and Politics in China. Royal Collins Press. ISBN 9781487812737.
  3. Hong Kong (China), Harrison and Sandra Forman's daughter Brenda Lu; University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee digital collections; accessed 2016-09-01
  4. Forman, Brenda-Lu Is Your name John?. New York: A. Frommer, 1964
  5. "Travel Diaries and Scrapbooks of Harrison Forman 1932 - 1973". uwm.edu.
  6. "Guide to the Harrison Forman Papers 1931-1974". University of Oregon Special Collections.
  7. Harrison Forman Collection Archived 2015-08-28 at the Wayback Machine The Harrison Forman Photo Collection contains over 3,800 prints and over 300 negatives... sized at 98,000 images
  8. "Through Forbidden Tibet - Narration". collections.lib.uwm.edu.
  9. "Harrison Forman". IMDb.
External links

Media related to Harrison Forman at Wikimedia Commons