Ewen MacLeod was born in Scotland in 1881 and immigrated to Canada around 1903. After getting married in 1911 and working for the BC Provincial Police in Clayoquot, BC, he moved with his family to Lytton, BC in 1915 to work as a Farm Instructor and Indian Constable. Around 1920 he was promoted to Indian Agent for the Lytton area, a post he occupied until his death in a car accident on September 27, 1931.
Frederich H. Maude was born in 1858 in England, and died in the mid 1940s in California. According to family legend, Maude was smuggled out of England in a frantic attempt to escape the police, although what crime he had committed is not known. Maude settled in California, where he became a beach photographer and eventually started his own business.
Harry B. Hawthorn was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1910. He completed his B.Sc (1932) and M.Sc. (1934) with the intention of becoming a civil engineer. During the Depression Hawthorn worked for New Zealand's Native School Service. Unable to pursue his studies in science in the small communities in which he worked, he became interested in the humanities, studying history extra-murally. He earned his B.A. in 1937. The years spent in the Native School Service had an arguably strong influence on Hawthorn. He was offered and accepted a fellowship to study anthropology at the University of Hawaii in 1938. The following year he was offered another fellowship to study anthropology at Yale University where he completed his PhD in 1941. While there he met Audrey Engel who later became his wife.
Hawthorn's appointment to the faculty of the University of British Columbia in 1947 added Anthropology to the title of the Dept. of Economics, Political Science and Sociology. His objectives upon coming to UBC were to: establish his discipline in an academic setting of the University and in the Province; to offer anthropology as a contribution to the general education of a broad group of students and to begin the selection and training of a few specialists; to establish problems for ethnological research; and, in keeping with conviction that scholarship should be useful as well as decorative, to discover possibilities for the practical application of anthropology in the Province and the country.
In 1949, Hawthorn was asked by the Provincial Government to undertake a study of the problems confronting Doukhobors in British Columbia. He assembled a team of scholars from various disciplines to investigate different aspects of the issue. The subsequent report (1955), helped to ameliorate the Doukhobors and encouraged increased cooperation among the Doukhobors, non-Doukhobors and the government. It also proved to be a valuable experience for members of the research team. In 1954, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration commissioned a comprehensive study of B.C. Indians. Hawthorn again assembled a research team which completed its study in 1956. In that same year Anthropology, Sociology and Criminology separated from Economics and Political Science to form a new department with Hawthorn as its head, a position which he held until 1968. Hawthorn undertook direction of a third large-scale interdisciplinary research project in 1963 -- The Survey of Contemporary Indians of Canada (1966, 1967). The project not only influenced the development of native affairs in Canada but also contributed to development of Canadian anthropology by providing practical and research experience for a number of young scholars.
In addition to the above-described activities, Hawthorn and his wife Audrey also played a significant role in the development of the UBC Museum (later the Museum of Anthropology) and, in particular, the development of an outstanding collection of West Coast native artifacts.
Hawthorn served as a member of the UBC faculty until his retirement in 1976. He died in 2006.
Helen Frances Codere was born on September 10, 1917, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved to Minnesota in 1919. In 1939, she received her BA from the University of Minnesota, and in 1950 she completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Columbia University, where she studied under Ruth Benedict, a protégé of Franz Boas. Codere held appointments at a variety of academic institutions including Vassar University (1946-1953) and Brandeis University (1964 1982), where she was also dean of the graduate school from 1974-1977. At other times she held appointments at the American Ethnological Society, the University of British Columbia, Northwestern University, Bennington College, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Codere’s early work focused on the Kwakwaka’wakw. She carried out field studies in 1951 and 1955 and, in 1950, published Fighting with Property: Study of the Kwakiutl Potlatching and Warfare, 1792-1930. In 1959, Codere traveled to Rwanda to study social structures and relationships between the Tutsis and Hutus, and in 1973 published The Biography of an African Society: Rwanda 1900-1960. In 1966, she edited Boas’s unpublished manuscript, Kwakiutl Ethnography.
Helen Codere died in 2009.
Ken Kuramoto was contracted by the Museum of Anthropology in 1980 to produce the film Celebration of the Raven. At this time, Kuramoto was director of K.K Enterprises.
Sharon M. Fortney is an independent curator, researcher, and writer specializing in Coast Salish community projects. Fortney completed her BA in Archaeology at the University of Calgary. She has an MA in Anthropology (2001) and a PhD in Anthropology (2009), both from the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral research examined the status of First Nations community and museum relationships in Canada and the United States. Fortney’s other areas of interest and expertise include ethnography, material culture, memory, and identity. She has published papers and reports on various aspects of First Nations culture, including Pacific Coast Salish Art, Musqueam traditional land use, and Sto:lo basketry. She has worked as a guest curator and researcher for a variety of institutions, including the Museum of Anthropology, the North Vancouver Museum and Archives, the Museum of Vancouver, and the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art.
Stuart Schofield was born in Kent, England. After moving to Kingston, Ontario as a child, he completed his B.A. (1904), M.A. (1906), and B.Sc. (1908) at Queenʹs University. He later completed a Ph.D. at M.I.T. (1912). He began his geological career with the Geological Survey of Canada as a student assistant to R.W. Brock in 1906. In 1915, Schofield accepted Brockʹs invitation to start courses in Geology and Mineralogy at the newly‐established University of British Columbia. He was appointed professor of Structural Geography at the university in 1920. After accepting responsibility for making a geological survey of Hong Kong in 1906, Brock sent Schofield to undertake a general reconnaissance for six months. Ill health forced Schofield to retire from UBC in 1940; he died in Vancouver in 1947.
Thomas Laurie and Mildred Laurie were a married couple who managed the B.C. Packers general store in Alert Bay for many years. Their daughters Leslie and Cathie attended the first local integrated school there in the 1950s, and their son Tom was born in Alert Bay in 1962. After leaving Alert Bay in 1964 the family moved to Powell River, where Thomas and Mildred ran the Columbia Store, and then to Ocean Falls, where they managed the mill store. The Lauries later relocated to Kitimat and then to Prince George, where they ran a motel for 22 years.
Elizabeth Lominska Johnson was born in Ossining, New York in 1941. In 1963, she received a B.A. in Psychology from Bucknell University. After receiving this degree she travelled in Europe for a year. In 1965 she married Graham Johnson. In 1967, she received a M.A. in Anthropology from Cornell University. Subsequently Johnson moved to Hong Kong where she lived from 1968 to 1971. Johnson continued to study at Cornell and in 1976 she received a Ph.D. in Anthropology upon completion of her dissertation, "Households and Lineages in an Urban Chinese Village," which is a study of the effects of rapid urbanization upon kinship groups in a two-lineage Hakka village.
In 1974 and 1975 Elizabeth Lominska Johnson was engaged as the "Coordinator, China Resources Project," at the University of British Columbia (UBC). In this position she acted as a liaison between local schools and researchers focusing on China at UBC. In 1977, she was employed as a museum cataloguer on a part-time basis both by MacMillan Bloedel, and by the Museum of Anthropology (MOA). From 1978 to 1979, she was employed as the Public Programmes Coordinator by the Vancouver Museum and Planetarium Association, where she developed, implemented and supervised new courses, social events, and lectures. Since March 1979, she has been an employee of the Museum of Anthropology. Until August 1986, she was Curator of Collections. In this position Johnson was responsible for the intellectual and administrative control of artifacts in the museum’s collection through registration, conservation, loan procedures; development of policy and procedures, the planning a new textile storage system, providing collections information to the public and the creation of publications relating to the collection.
Since August of 1986, she held the position of Curator of Ethnology. Several of her responsibilities continued to the new position, including curatorial activities and development of policies and procedures. New responsibilities included: teaching the course "Museum Principles and Methods" in Anthropology as well as occasional courses in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the maintenance of collections documentation, maintenance and development of museum archives, managing public access to archives and supervising archival workers, appraising artifacts where required for accessioning or income tax receipts, maintaining financial records on the collections curating and coordinating exhibits, as well as taking on curatorial initiatives to develop and promote the East Asian collections in specific and the world-wide textile collection in general. In 1988, the responsibility for the MOA Archives was transferred to Johnson from Audrey Shane. Subsequently, in 1999 responsibility for the archives was transferred to the newly hired museum archivist.
Johnson’s work however was not restricted to the tasks required by her various positions at the museum. Johnson has also published works suitable for academic, museum and public audiences. These publications include exhibit catalogues, articles and book reviews. She has been active in community and professional associations, including: the Canadian Museums Association; the British Columbia Museums Association; the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong Branch; the Association for Asian Studies; the Archives Association of British Columbia; the Textile Society of Hong Kong; and the Canadian Asian Studies Association. She has regularly attended and participated in conferences, where she has presented papers on such diverse topics as Chinese ethnology, textile conservation, museum studies, archives, the development of curatorial partnerships, visible storage, textiles, repatriation, and Cantonese opera. Apart from her involvement with conferences Johnson has also been an active participant in the academic and museum communities at an international level. Beginning in 1998, she was a grant application assessor for the University Grants Committee in Hong Kong. In the same year she also took on work as an external examiner for the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as well as taking on a position as an advisor to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. Johnson was also highly involved in the local Vancouver community. From 1983 to 1995 she was a member of the Chinatown Historic Area Planning Committee in Vancouver. Beginning in 1998, she was also a member of the Vancouver Chinese Cultural Centre Museum and Archives Committee. In the fall of 2006 Johnson officially retired, though she continues to maintain her relationship with the Museum of Anthropology in a research capacity.
Lillian French, neé Lucey, worked as a nurse and teacher in various communities in British Columbia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories from the late 1930s to the 1960s, including Port Simpson, Old Crow, YT and Fort MacPherson, NWT. She was also a member of the Anglican Church Women’s Auxiliary. During her career, she collected many examples of Native handicrafts, many of which she received as gifts from her pupils and patients.
James “Jim” Albert Gibson was born on May 7, 1938 in Indiana. He studied anthropology at Indiana University, receiving a BA in 1960. In 1964, he graduated from the University of Washington with a Master of Arts degree in Linguistics, and in 1973 he received a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Hawaii, Hilo. Beginning in 1969, Gibson taught Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, retiring in 1996 as Associate Professor Emeritus. He died on February 23, 2009, in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Stanley E. Read was born on February 7, 1900, in Rock Island, Quebec. He earned the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1923 and Master of Arts in 1925 from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. After going to France on a scholarship from 1925 to 1927 and a brief employment at Bishop’s College in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Read moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1928 to work as an English Professor at DePaul University. While in Chicago, he met his wife, Ruth Read, whom he married in 1940. In 1946, Read moved to Vancouver and joined the Department of English at the University of British Columbia. He continued to teach in the department until his retirement in 1971. Read passed away in Vancouver on April 8, 1997 at the age of 97.
Read’s lasting contributions to the University of British Columbia are numerous. In 1953, Read was one of the eight U.B.C. professors who, along with writer Roderick Haig-Brown, started a foundation at U.B.C. with a small sum of money accumulated from “various bets and fines for illegal or non-ethical fishing methods” during a group fishing holiday at Upper Campbell Lake. The foundation, playfully called “The Harry Hawthorn Foundation for the Inculcation and Propagation of the Principles and Ethics of Fly-Fishing,” used its proceeds to purchase books on angling and game fishing for the U.B.C. Library, and over time produced what is now known as the Harry Hawthorn Foundation Collection. For 34 years, Read was the Secretary of the foundation and organized their annual fishing trips. Read was also instrumental in the organization of U.B.C.’s International House, and played a formative role in the creation of the University of British Columbia quarterly of English criticism and review, Canadian Literature.
Read wrote a number of articles, books, bibliographies, and book reviews about his academic interests and his hobby of fishing. Publications by Read include A Bibliography of Hogarth Books and Studies, 1900-1940 (DePaul University, 1941); Documents of Eighteenth Century Taste (DePaul University, 1942); What Manner of Man Was He? Andrew Carnegie and Libraries in British Columbia (University of British Columbia, 1960); More Recreation for the Contemplative Man: A Supplemental Bibliography of Books on Angling and Game Fish in the University of British Columbia (compiled with Laurenda Daniells. Library of the University of British Columbia, 1971); and A Place Called Pennask: A Capsule History of the Pennask Lake Company, Limited and the Pennask Lake Fishing and Game Club (Mitchell Press, 1977).
Read was also a hobbyist photographer and took many photos during his fishing trips and vacations with his wife, Ruth. Some of his photographs were featured in British Columbia: A Centennial Anthology (McLelland and Stewart, 1958), and one of his photographs was used for the cover of the book A Small and Charming World (Creekstone Press, 2001).
Rosa Ho was born on August 22, 1949 in Hong Kong. After moving to Canada, Ho earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a Masters of Arts with a specialization in Chinese Art from the University of British Columbia. She began her museum career with a volunteer position at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. In 1975 after completing some years of service at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, she was appointed as the museum’s Assistant Curator, a position she held until 1977. After moving back to British Columbia in 1978, she was appointed as Curator at the Surrey Art Gallery. She was promoted to Director of the gallery in 1980 and continued in this position until 1987. In 1988, she left the Surrey Art Gallery to begin working for the Museum of Anthropology as the Curator of Art and Public Programmes.
As the Curator of Art and Public Programming, she was responsible for activities surrounding the planning and production of exhibitions and public programmes for contemporary art, Inuit and First Nations art, community-based public programmes, and museum education.
Throughout her career, Ho had numerous professional affiliations and served on a number of local, provincial, and national arts committees. Ho also published extensively during her career on the subject of cultural identity. Rosa Ho passed away in 2001.
Director of the Museum of Anthropology
The Director of the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) is directly responsible for the general administration of the museum. Responsibilities carried out by the director include, but are not limited to: directing the development of museum policy, ensuring that the museum’s mandate is met and carried out, overseeing budgets and funding, maintaining correspondence with potential donors and managing staff. The Director also administers facilities and building maintenance and is responsible for overseeing exhibits and special programming hosted by the museum. As a part of the University of British Columbia (UBC), the director reports to the Dean of Arts.
MOA opened in 1947 and Dr. Harry Hawthorn, a professor of Anthropology, was appointed the first director in that year. He remained in this position until his retirement in 1974, when Michael Ames became the second director. Ames was director until he retired in 1997, when Ruth Phillips became director. She left the position in 2002, at which point Ames returned to MOA as Acting Director until Anthony Shelton was appointed as director in 2004.
Emma Hunt (Maxwalaogwa) (nee Billy) was an instructor in the teaching of Kwagulth and Nuu-chah-nulth culture. She was married to the late Chief Thomas Hunt. Emma was the daughter of a great Mowachaht Chief and Shaman, Dr. Billy, from the Mowachaht of Yuquot (Friendly Cove) on the west coast of Vancouver Island. .
Noah Shakspeare was a photographer, politician, labourer, activist, and civil servant. He was born on January 26, 1839 in Brierley Hill, England, son of Noah Shakespeare and Hannah Matthews. He married Eliza Jane Pearson on December 26, 1859, and they had seven children, of whom three sons and one daughter survived infancy. He and his family moved to Victoria, where he took up a career as a photographer from 1864 to the 1870s. He was elected and served as mayor of Victoria, B. C. in 1882 - 1888. He died on May 13, 1921 in Victoria.
Chief Joe Capilano (S7ápelek) (born on the traditional Squamish Nation territory in British Columbia and died 10 March 1910 in Yekw’ts, BC) was a Squamish Nation member who became one of the most influential Indigenous leaders in British Columbia, beginning in the late 19th century. His rise to this position was due in part to the encouragement of the Catholic Bishop who recognized S7ápelek’s devotion to his faith and his impressive abilities as an orator and leader. As the chosen successor to Chief Láwa Capilano, Joe S7ápelek became better known as Chief Joe Capilano and spent the rest of his life advocating for Canada’s recognition of Indigenous rights and title.