Harrison Forman

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.

Harrison Forman
Born	June 15, 1904 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Died	January 31, 1978(1978-01-31) (aged 73) New York City, New York, US

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.^[3][4]

His collection of diaries and fifty thousand photographs are now at American Geographical Society Library at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.^[5][6][7]

Forman who travelled to the Tibetan Plateau in 1932 and filmed the Panchen Lama at the Labrang Monastery^[8] 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)