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1914 (Creation)
- Creator
- Frank Speck
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13 modern silver gelatin prints.
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Biographical history
Born in Brooklyn, NY on November 8, 1881 Frank Gouldsmith Speck spent the first seven years of his life in the city, a fragile and sickly child. As was common at the time, Speck's parents felt that a rural environment would be better for their son's health, and in 1888 placed him in the care of family friend Fidelia Fielding, living in Mohegan, CT. Fielding was a widow, a Native American, and the last speaker of her tribal language in New England. While with Fielding the seeds for many of Speck's professional interests were laid as she tutored him in nature, natural history, English literature, and Mohegan language and literature. At age fourteen Speck returned to his family, now living in Hackensack, NJ.
Speck entered Columbia University at the turn of the century, receiving his A.B. (Bachelor of Arts) 2 in 1904 and started his graduate work under Franz Boas, receiving his M.A. from Columbia a year later. Speck received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1908 and remained in Philadelphia for the rest of his career.
It was not long after arriving in Philadelphia that Speck began his study of the Algonkians of the Eastern Woodlands. Speck went on to study the Algonkians of Delaware, the tribes of tidewater Virginia, the Cherokee in the Southeast, and the Iroquois, especially their ceremonialism. Speck's work among the Eastern tribes was indicative of his efforts to record dying languages and cultures. Speck studied a tribe's language, technology, decorative art, myths and tales, religious belief, ceremonialism, social organization, music, and hunting territories. Speck also chose to focus on a tribe's link to nature, with ethnobiology, material culture, and uses of the environment playing major themes in his work.
Another integral part of Speck's fieldwork was collecting material culture. His love for collecting artifacts in the field was motivated by the special problems in which he became interested from time to time. Occasionally, Speck's interest in arts and crafts drew him within the borders of archeology. He would also have replicas made by Indians of objects no longer in daily use.
What made Speck successful in his research was the method he used in the field. Speck was a "bedside ethnologist," staying with the people all day, eating with them, learning their language, and sleeping in the village. This sense of ease and intimate form of fieldwork allowed Speck to gain the trust of the tribes, facilitating his collection of data.
In his later years Speck was battling a failing heart and kidney disease, though this did not stop him from going into the field. Speck died at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on February 6 at the age of 68.
Custodial history
His original contact prints eventually were acquired by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec. These prints would be reproduced in 2004 for an exhibition entitled “Ktaqmkukewaq Mi’Kmaq:Wlqatmuti – The Mikmaw People of Newfoundland: A Celebration.” These prints were reproduced as modern silver gelatin prints and comprisde one of the main themes of the exhibit along with artifacts collected by Frank Speck during his visit to Bay St. George and Badger Brook, Newfoundland. The exhibit was opened in July 2004 at the Corner Brook Museum and Archives. The Federation of Newfoundland Indians a sponsor of the exhibit had a second set of these prints created as a gift for the Corner Brook Museum and Archives. These prints are now on display as part of the Corner Brook Museum and Archives - Aboriginal Peoples Exhibit.
Scope and content
Fonds consists of a set of 13 silver gelatin prints from original negatives held in the Speck collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec. These images were taken by Speck during the summer of 1914 while he was collecting Mi’kmaw artifacts in Bay St. George and Badger Brook, Newfoundland, and depict aspects of Mi’Kmaw life in turn-of-the-century Newfoundland.
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