Robert Joseph Flaherty photographs of Arctic peoples
odd: label: Local Call Number(s)
content: NAA Photo Lot 90-17
name: label: Creator
content: Flaherty, Robert Joseph, 1884-1951
creator: label: Creator
content: Flaherty, Robert Joseph, 1884-1951
culture: label: Culture
content: Arctic peoples
label: Culture
content: Eskimos
label: Culture
content: Indians of North America -- Subarctic
bioghist: label: Biographical/Historical note
content: Robert Joseph Flaherty (1884-1951) was born in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and spent his childhood traveling with his family to the mining regions in Michigan, Minnesota, and Canada.  Formally educated at Upper Canada College and Michigan College of Mines, he mostly studied geology and engineering subjects.  After leaving the Michigan College of Mines and marrying Frances Hubbard, Flaherty settled in Port Arthur (Thunder Bay), working as a surveyor and prospector across Canada.  His father introduced him to Sir William Mackenzie, who was building a trans-Canada railroad (now the Canadian National Railway), and Mackenzie commissioned Flaherty to study the Nastapoka Islands.  During this expedition (1910-1911), Flaherty developed a relationship with the Great Whale Inuit Camp.  He completed three more expeditions (1911-1912, 1913-1914, and 1915-1916) for Mackenzie, during which he took numerous photographs and filmed the Inuit during his later expeditoins to Baffin Island and Belcher Islands.  In 1920, Flaherty met Captain Thierry Mallet of Revillon Freres and convinced him to support a filmmaking expedition to the company's sub-arctic fur trading post, Port Harrison on Cape  Dufferin.  By the 1920-1921 expedition to Port Harrison (Inukjuak), Flaherty was focusing almost exclusively on film documentation, and most of his photographic work appears oriented toward the production of the film.  Ultimately, Flaherty produced the first commercially successful feature length documentary film and the pioneering ethnographic film, Nanook of of the North (1922).
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Print (platinum)
label: Extent
content: 13 Prints (possibly aquatint)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1914-1922
custodhist: label: Custodial History note
content: The photographs were collected by Rose Grayson and Charles Gelb, an assistant editor for Robert joseph Flaherty's film. They were donated by Rose and Gloria Grayson, 1990.
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.PhotoLot.90-17
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Prints
label: Type
content: Photographs
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: Photographs relating to Arctic peoples that were part of a set made in connection with Robert Joseph Flaherty's documentary, Nanook of the North.  They consist primarily of portraits of Arctic peoples, as well as images of a kayak in Hudson Bay, an man in the ice fields, and a close up image of a husky dog.
relatedmaterial: label: Location of Other Archival Materials
content: Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds the Robert Joseph Flaherty papers, 1884-1970.
label: Location of Other Archival Materials
content: Material relating to Flaherty held in the Archives of American Art in the Lotte Jacobi Place printed materials and the Preservation and utilization of documentary film footage shot by Robert Flaherty of John Howard Benson : typescript, 1978.