National Museum of the American Indian

June and Farrar Burn photographs from Alaska

Summary

Collection ID:
NMAI.AC.131
Creators:
Burn, Farrar, 1888-1974
Burn, June, 1893-1969
Dates:
1920-1921
Languages:
English
.
Physical Description:
12 Glass plate negatives
13 Copy negatives
Repository:
This collection includes negatives from June and Farrar Burn's time in Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska between 1920 and 1921. The Burns were granted teaching appointments from the Bureau of Education in the Alaska School Service and assigned to Gambell where they lived for a year, working closely with the Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) community there.

Content Description

Content Description
This collection consists of 12 glass plate negatives and 13 copy negatives that depict June and Farrar Burns' year long teaching appointments in Gambell, St. Lawrence Island with the Alasksa School Service between 1920 and 1921. This primarily includes photographs of the Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) community with whom they were living and working. The majority of the photographs were shot outdoors of men, women and children outside of their homes, with their sled dogs, and hunting. There are also several images of June Burn teaching her young students as well as group portraits of the children in her class. The glass plate negatives appear to be copies made sometime between 1921 and 1923 of originals that were likely nitrate negatives shot by Farrar Burn.

Biographical / Historical

Biographical / Historical
June Burn was born Inez Chandler Harris on June 19, 1893, in Anniston, Alabama. June met Farrar Burn (born September 22, 1888), a World War I veteran, while living in a cabin near Washington, D.C., and the two were wed in 1919. The couple began homesteading on the San Juan Islands in the Puget Sound before being granted teaching appointments from the Bureau of Education in the Alaska School Service and assigned to Gambell, St. Lawrence Island in Alaska in June, 1920. For a year they lived and worked closely with the Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) population there. When June became pregnant with their first son North they returned to the San Juans.
The Burns continued to travel extensively with June writing for various periodicals and eventually publishing her own autobiography "Living High: An Unconventional Autobiography" in 1941. Later in their lives Farrar traveled the country lecturing on and June taught for a short while at the University of Washington. In 1967, June and Farrar moved to a small farm near Fort Smith, Arkansas – Farrar's home town. June died there in 1969, followed by Farrar in 1975.

Administration

Author
Rachel Menyuk
Custodial History
The Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation made copy negatives (acetate) of the glass plate negatives in the 1960's as part of a large preservation project. Contact prints were also made at this time.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Purchased by the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, along with 71 ehtnographic items, from Farrar Burn in 1923.
Processing Information
Processed by Rachel Menyuk, Processing Archivist, in 2018.
Separated Materials
The Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation purchased 71 Alaskan ethnographic items from Farrar Burn which are now in NMAI Ethnology collection with catalog numbers 11/6726 - 11/6795.

Using the Collection

Conditions Governing Access
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Conditions Governing Use
Permission to publish materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiphotos@si.edu. For personal or classroom use, users are invited to download, print, photocopy, and distribute the images that are available online without prior written permission, provided that the files are not modified in any way, the Smithsonian Institution copyright notice (where applicable) is included, and the source of the image is identified as the National Museum of the American Indian. For more information please see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use and NMAI Archive Center's Digital Image request website.
Preferred Citation
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); June and Farrar Burn photographs from Alaska, Box and Folder Number; National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center, Smithsonian Institution.

Related Materials
The June and Farrar Burn Papers, 1921-1969, can be found at Western Washington University, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies.

Keywords

Keywords table of terms and types.
Keyword Terms Keyword Types
Yuit (Siberian Yup'ik) [St. Lawrence Island] Cultural Context Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Photographs Genre Form Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Indians of North America -- Alaska Topical Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid
Alaska Geographic Search Smithsonian Collections Search ArchiveGrid

National Museum of the American Indian
4220 Silver Hill Rd
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Business Number: Phone: 301.238.1400
Fax Number: Fax: 301.238.3038
nmaiarchives@si.edu