641
ian costume, and one of our party asked permission to
photograph them as they made a picturesque group.
They replied in the native language, and as it was sup-
posed they could not speak English we were rather free
with our remarks.” Upon returning to Hilo they met the
King, Kalakaua, who had just arrived from Honolulu.
Having heard of their photographic outing, he asked for
a copy of the picture as his sister-in-law was part of the
group. “To our horror we learnt that these ladies had
understood our conversation.”
Images of the islands increased with the availability
of commercially prepared dry plate negatives. The lo-
cal amateur photography society, the Hawaiian Camera
Club (1889–1893), was open to photographers through-
out the islands, as well as to visitors. Danish sugar mill
engineer, Christian J. Hedemann (1852–1932), was
instrumental in founding the organization. A photograph
of the club members, made with the aid of magnesium
fl ash, was taken in 1889 with the assistance of a British
naval offi cer, Lieutenant Pears. Pears also photographed
a musical gathering with Robert Louis Stevenson, his
family and friends at Waikiki.
The reigning monarch, Liliuokalani, was overthrown
by American business interests in 1893 and an interim
government was established. The U.S. annexed the Ha-
waiian Islands in1898. Earlier that year, U.S. military
recruits came through Honolulu on their way to fi ght the
Spanish-American war in the Philippines. The military
build up in the islands provided a signifi cant market for
picture postcards. Images of Hawaiian women posed as
“scantily dressed hula girls,” and men casting fi shing
nets became a commodity in expanding the islands’
tourist economy.
Lynn Ann Davis
See also: Weed, Charles Leander; and Dry Plate
Negatives: Non-Gelatine, Including Dry Collodion.
Further Reading
Abramson, Joan, Photographers of Old Hawaii. Honolulu: Island
Heritage, 1976.
Arning, Eduard, Ethnographische notizen aus Hawaii 1883–86.
Hamburg: Friederichsen, De Gruyter & Co. 1931.
Davis, Lynn, Na Pai Kii: The Photographers in the Hawaiian Is-
lands, 1845–1900. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1980.
Davis, Lynn Ann, “Photographically Illustrated Books about
Hawaii,” History of Photography, Autumn 2001, 288–305.
Davis, Lynn Ann and David W. Forbes, “American Daguerreian
in the Hawaiian Islands,” History of Photography, Autumn
2001, 252–258.
Davis, Lynn Ann with Nelson Foster, Christian J. Hedemann:
A Photographer in the Kingdom. Honolulu: Bishop Museum
Press, 1987.
Kaeppler, Adrienne L., “Encounters with Greatness: Collecting
Hawaiian Monarchs and Aristocrats,” History of Photography,
Autumn 2001, 259–268.
Lawrance, H.A., “With the Eclipse Expedition,” British Journal
of Photography, August 17, 1883.
McElroy, Keith, Early Peruvian Photography: A Critical Case
Study. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1985.
Palmquist, Peter and Thomas R. Kailbourn, Pioneer Photogra-
phers of the Far West: A Biographical Dictionary, 1840–1865.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Stewart, George W., Tourists’ Guide for the Hawaiian Islands.
Honolulu: J. Williams & Co., 1882.
Wortley, H. Stuart, “Photography in the Challenger,” Nature,
November 11, 1875.HAWARDEN, VISCOUNTESS
CLEMENTINA ELPHINSTONE
(1822–1865)
British photographer
Viscountess Clementina Elphinstone Hawarden (nee
Fleeming) was born at Cumbernauld, her family’s estate
near Glasgow, Scotland on June 1, 1822. Her father
Charles Elphinstone Fleeming was an Admiral in the
Royal British Navy who met and married Hawarden’s
mother Catalina Paulina Alessandro, originally of
Cádiz, Spain, while stationed in Spain and Portugal in- Her mother’s Spanish, Roman Catholic identity
has caused some scholars to forge links between the
photographer’s work and that of religiously themed
Spanish Old Master paintings.
Educated at home with her sisters, Hawarden studied
the primarily “feminine” subjects of languages, music,
the visual arts, needlework and literature until the fall
of 1841, when she and her mother and sisters, in the
company of her uncle Mountstuart Elphinstone, trav-
eled to Rome after Admiral Fleeming’s death. Before
settling in Rome, the party sojourned in Florence, where
Hawarden was particularly taken with the Renaissance
painting collections at the Pitti Palace. Little is known
of her daily excursions in Rome, but it is likely that she
visited the major art and architectural attractions and ex-
perienced the lively masquerading of the carnival season
while in residence. This respite in Italy perhaps colored
Hawarden’s later photographic choices. Careful study of
Renaissance painting compositions and the theatricality
of carnival may have inspired the harmonious fi gural
relationships and creative role playing characteristic of
her mature work.
The Fleemings moved to London in 1842, where
Hawarden married Cornwallis Maude in 1845, much
to the displeasure of the Hawarden family who were
aristocratic Protestant landlords in Ireland and believed
their son to be marrying below his social rank. The
couple lived in upper-class circumstances in London for
the fi rst twelve years of their marriage, during which
time Hawarden was often pregnant. She gave birth to ten
children, many of them her future photographic models,
in her lifetime and was survived by eight of them, seven
daughters and one son.