Flaherty, Frances Hubbard (c. 1886–1972)

American photographer, specializing in documentation, who worked with her husband on the heralded film Nanook of the North. Born Frances Hubbard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, around 1886; died in Dummerston, Vermont, in 1972; graduated from Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1905; married Robert Joseph Flaherty (a prospector and supervisor for the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway and motion-picture director), on November 12, 1914 (died 1951); children: Barbara Flaherty (b. 1916); Francis Flaherty (b. 1917); Monica Flaherty (b. 1920).

Frances Hubbard Flaherty worked almost exclusively with her husband Robert Joseph Flaherty, whom she met while he was a student at Michigan College of Mines (now Michigan Technological University). Between 1910 and 1916, when Robert headed exploratory expeditions for the Canadian Northern Railroad, Frances photographed geological formations and made documentary films focusing on life in the North. She also assisted on many of her husband's subsequent films, including the silent Nanook of the North (1924), about the life of the Eskimo (Inuit), which was hailed as the first documentary that attempted to interpret the lives of its subjects. Frances made still photographs for Nanook of the North, and the film was a huge success internationally. Frances was co-editor on the film Moana (1926), their study of life in the South Seas. She also served as photographer on Man of Aran (1934) and co-writer of Louisiana Story (1948). Following her husband's death in 1951, she co-founded the Robert J. Flaherty Foundation, now the International Film Seminars. Frances Flaherty died in Vermont in 1972.

Barbara Morgan , Melrose, Massachusetts