Kajima Seibei came from a wealthy business family. Kajima travelled around Japan in the late 1880s and early 1890s, and produced many photographic works that he distributed through various studios. As one of the founding members of the Photographic Society of Japan, he helped finance Ogawa Kazumasa, another important photographer from this period. In 1895, he opened a photo studio in Tokyo.
Josephine Gladstone (nee Wilson) was born ca. 1869. She married Charlie Gladstone on February 4, 1892. They had three children: Magaret Janet (ca. 1892), Sophia (1895), and Edgar (1897). She died in Skidegate on March 12, 1932 at 63.
Jonathan Griffin was a UBC student. In 1974 Griffin took a trip to Anthony Island in Haida Gwaii, where he took extensive pictures of the conditions of the poles at a deserted Haida village.
John Williams was a Reverend in the Anglican Church of England, and was commissioned as a missionary in 1816 by the London Missionary Society. In 1917, Williams and his wife Mary Chawner voyaged first to Australia and from there to the Society Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. Their first missionary post was established on the island of Raiatea. Williams and his wife later engaged in mission trips to the Polynesian islands with other London Missionary Society representatives. The couple was also involved in mission work in the Cook Islands, specifically the islands of Aitutaki and Rarotonga. In 1834 the Williamses returned to Britain. During this time, John William oversaw the printing of the New Testament which he had translated into the Rarotongan language. While in London Williams published a work titled “Narrative of Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands” that helped expand awareness in England of the South Seas Islands region. Throughout their careers, the Williamses were well known for the success of their mission work
In 1837, John Williams returned to the Polynesian islands on the mission ship Camden, commanded by Captain Robert Clark Morgan. In 1839, John Williams and fellow missionary James Harris were engaging in missionary work on the New Hebrides [Republic of Vanuatu] islands. On November 20, 1839, Williams and fellow missionary James Harris landed on the island of Erromango. As they approached the shore they were attacked and killed by the people living on the island, and ritualistically cannibalized. Unbeknownst to the missionaries, a few days prior, traders had landed on the island of Erromango and the people erroneously thought Harris and Williams were returning traders. In 1839, a memorial stone in Williams’ honor was erected on the island of Rarotonga.
John Webber was an English artist most famous for the drawings he created while accompanying the explorer Captain James Cook on his third and final voyage. Webber studied fine arts in Switzerland and Paris. Returning to England in 1775, he came to the attention of the English naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, who appears to have introduced him to Captain James Cook. Cook subsequently hired Webber to accompany him aboard the HMS Resolution as a topographical artist, supplying drawings to supplement the official written account of the journey.
In July 1776, the expedition departed England and sailed for the Pacific. After visiting Australia, the Hawaiian Island (which Cook named the Sandwich Islands), and a number of other South Sea islands, Cook’s ships reached the coast of North America, which they charted while attempting to discover the Northwest Passage. In the spring of 1778, the expedition spent a month retrofitting their vessels at Nootka Sound, where Webber was active sketching landscapes and the indigenous peoples they encountered. Having charted the remainder of the North American coastline to the Bering Strait, the expedition returned in February 1779 to Hawaii, where Cook was killed following a dispute with the Hawaiians.
As an artist aboard the HMS Resolution, Webber created some 200 sketches during the four-year voyage. Upon the expedition’s return to England in 1780, Webber was commissioned to supervise the engraving of 61 of these drawings for publication in official journals, a task that took him until 1785. Between 1784 and 1792, Webber exhibited 50 works at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1785, and a Royal Academician in 1791.
John Mennie was a radio operator in Alert Bay for Bull Harbor, Alert Bay Wireless and Alert Bay Radio between 1930 and 1937.
Son of Willie Seaweed, Joe Seaweed married in 1928 to Nellie Walkus in Fort Rupert. Joe Seaweed learned to carve while working with his father, and during this time he carved many masks and other carvings very similar to his father's style. In many cases, Joe Seaweed may have done a number of works that have been previously identified as Willie Seaweed's due to their similar styles.
Joan Goodall served as a nurse in Burma during and after the Second World War. Goodall was a volunteer at the UBC Museum of Anthropology (MOA) before the Volunteer Associates was organized. During her volunteer work at MOA, Goodall worked in the Library and then in Ethnology, serving as chairman of the Ethnology Committee and the Nominating Committee. Joan Goodall passed away on 18 January 1982.
Dr. Joan D. Witney (also known as Dr. Joan Witney-Moore) was one of the three founding doctors of the first Community Health Clinic opened under the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act (1962). Witney had originally trained as a nurse, graduating in the first year that nurses were granted a Bachelor of Nursing degree. After the Second World War, she worked at Norway House and Moosonee. Witney-Moore trained as a doctor and interned at the Charles Camsell Hospital in Edmonton during the 1950s.
In early July 1962, Drs. Joan Witney, Margaret Mahood, and Sam Wolfe helped the Community Health Services Association open Saskatchewan’s first Community Health Clinic. Witney provided medical care during the twenty-three-day strike by most of the province’s doctors, but left the clinic at the end of the strike later in July.
Jim and Mary Prime, who were residents of Vancouver, made a donation to the Museum of Anthropology that consisted of early twentieth century black and white negatives that were taken in the South Pacific along with a tapa from the same region and time period. The tapa, which is an example of early Polynesian tapa, compliments MOA’s existing collection.
Jessie Binning (nee Wyllie) was an important figure in the protection of the "Binning House" in West Vancouver and the emerging culture of West Coast Modernism. Her father was a businessman and one of the early entrepreneurs to trade with Japan and took Jessie on a trip to Japan when she was 19 years old, where she developed a lifelong appreciation for Japanese culture and art. Jessie Binning was also Bertram Charles (B.C.) Binning's wife, who founded the Department of Fine Arts at UBC in 1949 and was a renowned artist and teacher in BC. Jessie and Bert build their modern house in West Vancouver in 1941 and she lived there until her death at the age of 101.
Jennifer Kramer is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Curator, Pacific Northwest at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at the University of British Columbia. She received a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University in 2003. Her research focuses on Northwest Coast First Nations visual culture in regards to aesthetic valuation, commodification, appropriation, tourism, legal regimes, and museums.
Kramer is the author of publications that include Switchbacks: Art, Ownership, and Nuxalk National Identity (UBC Press, 2006), Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer (Douglas & McIntyre Press, 2012) which won the 2012 British Columbia Museums Associations Museums in Motion Award of Merit and co-editor with Charlotte Townsend-Gault and Ki-ke-in of Native Art of the Northwest Coast: A History of Changing Ideas (UBC Press 2013) which received three awards: the 2015 Canada Prize in the Humanities, Federation for Social Sciences and Humanities; the 2015 Jeanne Clark Award in Northern History, Prince George Public Library; and the 2014 Melva J. Dwyer Award, Art Libraries Society of North America – Canadian Chapter. Kramer is also a co-applicant and partner in a $1 million SSHRC CURA grant (2011-2016) to explore new alternatives for the recovery of Indigenous heritage of two Quebecois First Nations: The Ilnu of Mashteuiatsh and the Anishnabeg of Kitigan Zibi.
Kramer's curated temporary exhibitions include: Layers of Influence: Unfolding Cloth across Cultures (UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2016-2017), Beyond the Cap + Gown: 100 Years of UBC Studen t Clothing with her ANTH 43 1 university studen ts (IK Barber Learning Commons, UBC 2016), Together Again: Nuxalk Faces of the Sky with her UBC university studen ts (UBC Museum of Anthropology and the Seattle Art Museum, 2012-2013), Kesu’: The Art and Life of Doug Cranmer (UBC Museum of Anthropology, The Museum at Campbell River, The U’mista Cultural Centre, 2012-2013) and the The Story of Nulis – a Kwakwaka’wakw Imas Mask (UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2010-2012).