{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2020}} {{short description|Tsimshian First Nations photographer (1874-1941)}} thumb|Benjamin Haldane, 1907 '''Benjamin Alfred Haldane''' (June 15, 1874 – November 21, 1941) was a Tsimshian professional photographer from Metlakatla, Alaska.<ref name=burke>[http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/inthespirit/our_artwork.php In the Spirit of the Ancestors.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829153559/http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/inthespirit/our_artwork.php |date=August 29, 2008 }} ''Burke Museum.'' 2007 (retrieved July 15, 2009)</ref>
==Background== Benjamin Alfred Haldane was born on June 15, 1874, in the village of Metlakatla, British Columbia.
He was a full-blood member of the Tsimshian tribe, a First Nations people spanning British Columbia and Alaska.<ref>[https://docs.google.com/gview?a=vq=cache:EZd2UXbLQo0J:www.bcarchives.bc.ca/Content_Files/Files/DanrevisedEarlyPhotographersSeptember.pdf+Benjamin+Haldane&hl=en&gl=us Early Photographers of First Peoples in British Columbia: 1850-1930.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121112034043/https://docs.google.com/gview?a=vq%3Dcache%3AEZd2UXbLQo0J%3Awww.bcarchives.bc.ca%2FContent_Files%2FFiles%2FDanrevisedEarlyPhotographersSeptember.pdf+Benjamin+Haldane&hl=en&gl=us |date=November 12, 2012 }} Page 1 (retrieved through Google Docs, 15.July.2009)</ref> At the age of 13, Haldane migrated to the village of Metlakatla, Alaska, located on Annette Island, along with 800 other Tsimshian people. They made the 30-mile journey by canoe, seeking secure land rights and religious freedom with the missionary William Duncan.<ref name=tp>Tsinhnahjinnie and Passalacqua, 2</ref>
Haldane's parents were Matthias (Matthew) Haldane and Caroline Auriol. Haldane married his first wife, Martha Calvert, on November 17, 1896, and together the couple had 11 children. Martha died in 1918. Haldane married again before 1938 to his second wife, Margaret.
He was a successful merchant and grocer, who served as his village's secretary for 35 years. In 1903, Haldane began teaching music and was respected for his musical abilities throughout southeast Alaska. For 38 years, he was the organist and choir master at the William Duncan Memorial Church and led the Metlakatla Concert Band.
==Art career== [[File:Benjamin haldane photo.jpg|thumb|Portrait photograph of Tsimshian family by Benjamin Haldane]]
Haldane took up photography in the late 19th century, as did his brother Henry Haldane and Thomas Eaton, also Tsimshian.<ref>Hoxie, Frederick E. [https://books.google.com/books?id=o-BNU7QuJkYC&dq=Catawba+Indian+Mormon&pg=PA103 ''Encyclopedia of North American Indians''.]{{Dead link|date=November 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996: 480. {{ISBN|978-0-395-66921-1}} (retrieved through Google Books, July 15, 2009)</ref> At the age of 25, in 1899, Haldane opened his own portrait studio.<ref name=tp/>
He maintained his studio and actively documented the people of his community from the 1890s to approximately 1910.<ref>Dutton, Lee S. [https://books.google.com/books?id=Br5q-b0rJv4C&dq=Benjamin+Haldane&pg=PA50 Anthropological Resources: A Guide to Archival, Library, and Museum Collections.] Florence, KY: Routledge, 1999: 49-50. {{ISBN|978-0-8153-1188-1}}. (retrieved through Google Books, July 15, 2009)</ref> He specialized in portrait photography and his works are carefully composed. They show the Tsimshian at a time of great transition. Families and individuals posed in Western clothing of their day. They are photographed inside with props and backdrops or outside. He photographed events such as weddings<ref name=thm>[http://www.city.ketchikan.ak.us/departments/museums/documents/FallNewsletter2006.pdf Metlakatla Vintage Photographs.] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110527163108/http://www.city.ketchikan.ak.us/departments/museums/documents/FallNewsletter2006.pdf |date=May 27, 2011 }} ''Ketchikan Museums.'' November–December 2006: 1. (retrieved July 15, 2009)</ref> or concerts by his marching band. As a community insider, he was able to achieve an intimate look at the Tsimshian people. He was also able to photograph potlatches, outlawed at the time, along the Nass River.<ref name=tp/>
==Legacy== Haldane died on November 21, 1941, from pulmonary tuberculosis. He is buried in Ocean View Cemetery in Metlakatla.
His photographs have been increasingly exhibited in recent decades. This revived interest in his work was sparked by Dennis Dunne, who rescued 162 original glass plate negatives of Haldane's photographs from the dump on Annette Island in the 1990s.<ref name=thm/>
The Tongass Historical Museum curated ''Metlakatla: Vintage Photographs'' in 2006, which featured 36 of prints of his photographs.<ref name=thm/> Also in 2006, his work was included in ''Our People, Our Land, Our Images'', an exhibition of indigenous photographers at the C.N. Gorman Museum at the University of California, Davis, curated by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120712042001/http://google.com/search?q=cache:smJv4aBNKqEJ:gormanmuseum.ucdavis.edu/Exhibitions/Previous/IPC/confschedule.pdf+Benjamin+Haldane&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a "Our People, Our Land, Our Images."] ''Gorman Museum, UC Davis.'' 2006 (retrieved July 15, 2009)</ref> That shows also traveled to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, Washington. in 2007.<ref name=burke/>
==Notes== {{Reflist|2}}
==References== * Tsinhnahjinnie, H. J. and Passalacqua, Veronica, eds. ''Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photography.'' Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2008. {{ISBN|978-1-59714-057-7}}.
==External links== {{commons category|Benjamin Alfred Haldane}} * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110527163228/http://www.city.ketchikan.ak.us/departments/museums/Metlakatla.htm Extensive collection of Benjamin Haldane's photography], Tongass Historical Museum * [https://web.archive.org/web/20120306171344/http://travelpeapod.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/bringing-our-history-into-focus/ Bringing our History into Focus: Re-Developing the work of B.A. Haldane, 19th Century Tsimshian Photographer by Mique’l Askren; April 16, 2010] * Askren, Mique'l Icesis [https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0092671 ''From Negative to Positive: B.A. Haldane, Nineteenth Century Tsimshian Photographer'']. Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2006. <!-- Goes above DEFAULTSORT/Categories -->
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Haldane, Benjamin}} Category:1874 births Category:1941 deaths Category:19th-century Native American artists Category:20th-century Native American artists Category:20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Category:20th-century Alaska Native people Category:Artists from Alaska Category:First Nations photographers Category:Native American photographers Category:Native American musicians Category:People from Prince of Wales–Hyder Census Area, Alaska Category:Tsimshian people Category:Tuberculosis deaths in Alaska Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States