Background
William M. Gallagher was born on February 26, 1923 in Hiawatha, Kansas, United States.
1953
William M. Gallagher was born on February 26, 1923 in Hiawatha, Kansas, United States.
In 1936 William Gallagher moved to Flint and graduated from St. Matthew's High School in 1943. During World War II he served in the United States Army in the signal corps, medical corps, and air corps.
William Gallagher earned his first camera while in high school by selling magazines. He began his professional photography career with the Sporting Digest in Flint in 1946. The following year he moved to the Flint Journal and within a few months became a staff photographer, a position he would hold until his death.
William Gallagher died of meningitis at age 52.
William Gallagher snapped his Pulitzer-winning photo at a Labor Day rally in Flint Park. Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson was seated on a platform with Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams. William Gallagher, kneeling at the base of the platform, took a photo of Stevenson seated with his legs crossed, which revealed a hole in the bottom of his right shoe. Because of Gallagher's position, he had to take this photo without looking through the shutter first. He didn't take the photo seriously and didn't think the Journal would publish it since they endorsed Stevenson's Republican opponent Dwight D. Eisenhower, so he gave it to his editor saying "I just finished this for the hell of it. I don't suppose a Republican paper would want to use it." However, the Journal ran the photo on the front page. The New York Times wrote that Gallagher's photo was "one of the outstanding pictures of the campaign", perhaps because it contrasted with Stevenson's serious, patrician image. Stevenson was sent an "avalanche" of shoes by people who saw the imageand when Gallagher won the Pulitzer Stevenson sent him a telegram reading "Glad to hear you won with a hole in one."
Gallagher's colleagues described him as "a boisterous, flamboyant character" who had good relationships with local police and government officials. He was fond of pranks, once lighting a cherry bomb inside the police department and watching the officers scramble, while another time he commandeered a police helicopter while covering a story.
