Camera Workers, 1858-1950

The British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Photographic Directory, 1858-1950

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Boas, Franz[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Male 1858 - 1942  (84 years)


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  • Name Boas, Franz 
    Born 9 Jul 1858  Minden, Westphalia, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Where Active (Non-Specific Address) 1886  Cowichan Valley, BC Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Where Active (Non-Specific Address) 1897-1902  BC Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Also worked in Comox area 
    Died 21 Dec 1942  New York, NY Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Association Smith, Harlan Ingersoll (Relationship: Colleague) 
    Association Hastings, Oregon Columbus (Relationship: Employee) 
    Association Brooks, Edward Coley (Relationship: Employee) 
    Association Spencer, Stephen Allen (Relationship: Acquaintance) 
    Association Teit, James Alexander (Relationship: Undefined) 
    Person ID I410  Camera Workers | B, vol. 1, 1858-1900
    Last Modified 8 Jan 2020 

  • Notes 
    • STATUS: Amateur (visit).
    • BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY: Boas, regarded as one of the founders of modern anthropology, learned photography in Berlin from Hermann Wilhelm Vogel (1854-1898), a photochemist and inventor who worked with sensitizing photographic film to the colours of the spectrum. On his first field trip to BC in 1886, Boas took pictures of the Cowichan people. Zumwalt (2019, p. 166) speculates that he borrowed a camera from O.C. Hastings.
      On a later trip in 1888-1889 it is believed he used the skills of O.C. Hastings whom Boas also employed in Nov 1894 at Fort Rupert. In 1888 Boas also hired E.C. Brooks who was photographing canneries and sawmills along the Skeena River. Boas knew S.A. Spencer who had retired from photography by the late 1880s, but had married Annie Hunt, a Kwakiutl and sister of George Hunt, one of Boas' most important informants and a photographer himself beginning in 1901. Hunt would later figure prominently in E.S. Curtis' Kwakiutl work. Boas also led the Jesup North Pacific Expedition (1897-1902), which was sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History.

  • Sources 
    1. [S54] COLLECTION: AMNH.

    2. [S151] COLLECTION: NAA.

    3. [S381] Kroeber (1943), A.L. Kroeber, (American Anthropologist (July-Sept. 1943):5-26).

    4. [S313] Jacknis (1984), Ira Jacknis, (Studies in Visual Communication 10, no. 1 (Winter 1984):2-60).

    5. [S373] Kendall (1997), Laurel Kendall, Barbara Mathé, and Thomas Ross Miller, (New York: American Museum of Natural History; Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1997).

    6. [S183] American Museum of Natural History (Jesup Photo Database), American Museum of Natural History, (New York, NY: American Museum of Natural History).

    7. [S248] Cole (1999), Cole, Douglas, (Vancouver, BC: Douglas & McIntyre, 1999).

    8. [S1066] Zumwalt (2019), Rosemary Levy Zumwalt, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019), 920.9301 BOA.