Frances H. Flaherty

Frances Johnson Hubbard was born in Bonn, Germany into "a household of erudition, gentility, and privilege," the daughter of Lucius L. Hubbard (1849–1933), who was studying mineralogy at the University of Bonn, and his wife Frances (1852–1927).Robert J. Christopher (ed.), Robert and Frances Flaherty: A Documentary Life, 1883-1922 (McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2005: {{ISBN|0-7735-2876-8}}), pp. 40-42. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1905,{{cite news |date=24 June 1972 |title=Mrs. Robert Flaherty, Widow Of Documentary Filmmaker |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/06/24/archives/mrs-robert-flaherty-widow-of-documentary-filmmaker.html |accessdate=23 March 2019}} studied music and poetry in Paris and was also secretary of the local Suffragette Society.

She met Robert Flaherty in 1903 in Painesdale, Michigan, where he was employed by her father; the two fell in love, but Flaherty, then "a lumberjack-handyman... of no means and few expectations," was dismissed by her father, after which Frances had a nervous breakdown and was treated at a sanatorium in Dansville, New York, while Flaherty went to British Columbia. Frances visited him there during the summer of 1908, but the two quarreled, and Frances broke their engagement and went back East.Christopher (ed.), Robert and Frances Flaherty: A Documentary Life, 1883-1922, pp. 43-48.

Over the next few years, she "traveled to New York and Paris to continue her conservatory training in music and piano, and in 1911 she visited the West Indies and South America."Christopher (ed.), Robert and Frances Flaherty: A Documentary Life, 1883-1922, p. 49. On November 12, 1914, she married Flaherty in a civil ceremony in New York City; it is not clear how their relationship was renewed: "Legend has it that she sent him a congratulatory telegram on hearing reports of his return with the rediscovery of the Belcher Islands confirmed; and he shot back a reply that included a proposal of marriage."Christopher (ed.), Robert and Frances Flaherty: A Documentary Life, 1883-1922, p. 201. She herself wrote in a self-profile for the tenth reunion of her Bryn Mawr class in 1915:

Coming back for a visit to my own country last July, I found myself caught by the war, and doubly caught in the toils of an old romance. I married my husband for several very plain and simple reasons: 1. Because an innate sense for the preservation of his own genius has saved him from all educational institutions or instruction of any kind. 2. Because that genius is for (a) exploration, (Profession: Exploration and Mining), and (b) music and the arts, (Avocations: playing the violin and portrait photography).Christopher (ed.), Robert and Frances Flaherty: A Documentary Life, 1883-1922, p. 203.

Flaherty worked alongside her husband Robert Flaherty on several films, including Louisiana Story (1948), for which she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story.{{cite web |title=Frances H. Flaherty |url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0280878/ |accessdate=23 March 2019 |website=IMDb}} Flaherty appeared in a feature-length documentary on her and her husband's film work, Hidden and Seeking (1971) directed by Peter Werner. She was a crucial part of Robert Flaherty's success in film. She took on the role of director at times, helped to edit and distribute his films, even landing governmental film contracts for England.{{Cite news |editor-last=Barry |editor-first=Ann |date=1979-05-27 |title=Arts and Leisure Guide |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/27/archives/arts-and-leisure-guide-of-special-interest-theater-festival.html |access-date=2023-07-22 |issn=0362-4331}}

After Robert's death, Flaherty began inviting filmmakers, critics, curators, musicians and others to the Flaherty farm in Vermont, and in 1955 founded there a film study center that still exists as the Flaherty Seminar.{{cite web|date=10 March 2011|title=About Us|url=http://flahertyseminar.org/about-us/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190114100547/http://flahertyseminar.org/about-us/|archive-date=14 January 2019|access-date=14 January 2019|website=The Flaherty}}

She was married to collaborator and documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty from 1914 until his death in 1951.

The couple had three children, Barbara van Ingen (married to Botha van Ingen of Van Ingen & Van Ingen in Mysore),[https://www.deccanherald.com/content/623191/art-thats-stuffed-mounted.html Art that's stuffed & mounted (2017)]) Monica Flaherty Frassetto, and Frances Rohr. They were married until Robert's death in 1951.

Flaherty died on June 22, 1972, in Dummerston, Vermont.Turner Browne and Elaine Partnow, Macmillan Biographical Encyclopaedia of Photographic Artists (Macmillan, 1983: {{ISBN|0-02-517500-9}}), p. 198.

• {{cite book |last1=Flaherty |first1=Frances Hubbard |last2=Leacock |first2=Ursula |title=Sabu, the elephant boy |date=1937 |publisher=Dent |location=London |isbn=9780939660148 |oclc=475662289 |language=English}}
• {{cite book |last1=Flaherty |first1=Frances Hubbard |title=The odyssey of a film-maker: Robert Flaherty's story |date=1984 |publisher=Threshold Books |location=Putney, VT |isbn=9780939660148 |oclc=754885242 |language=English}}

• {{cite book |last1=Flaherty |first1=Frances Hubbard |title=The odyssey of a fim-maker: Robert Flaherty's story |date=1984 |publisher=Threshold Books |location=Putney, VT|oclc=463088746 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Flaherty |first1=Frances Hubbard |title=Samoan immortals |date=1925 |location=Concord, NH|isbn=9780773528765 |oclc=16343953 }}
• {{cite book|last1=Flaherty |first1=Frances Hubbard |title=Elephant Dance|publisher=Faber and Faber|place=London|year=1919|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.221335 }}

• [http://www.flahertyseminar.org/?sb=7&mb=7 Frances Hubbard Flaherty: A True Seer], Memorial Tribute presented August 29, 1972, at the 18th Annual Robert Flaherty Film Seminar by D. Marie Grieco
• {{IMDb name|0280878|Frances Flaherty}}
• {{IMDb title|id=0416811|title=Hidden and Seeking}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flaherty, Frances H.}}

Category:1883 births

Category:1972 deaths

Category:People from Dummerston, Vermont

Category:American women screenwriters

Category:American documentary film directors

Category:Screenwriters from Vermont

Category:Bryn Mawr College alumni

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:20th-century American screenwriters