Yvette Borup Andrews

Yvette Borup Andrews (February 28, 1891 – April 12, 1959) was an American photographer associated with the American Museum of Natural History. With the museum's director, Roy Chapman Andrews, she traveled to Central Asia in 1918 for the museum's First and Second Asiatic Zoological Expeditions.

Yvette Borup Andrews
Yvette Borup Andrews, feeding a Tibetan blue bear cub in 1917
Born	Yvette Huen Borup February 28, 1891 Paris
Died	April 12, 1959 Burgos, Spain
Nationality	American
Occupation	photographer
Years active	1910s-1920s
Known for	photographing Central Asia for the American Museum of Natural History

Early life

Yvette Huen Borup was born in Paris to American parents, Henry Dana Borup (1854-1916) and Mary Watson Brandreth Borup (1854-1897). Her father was an American military attaché in Paris and Berlin before World War I. Her maternal grandfather, George A. Brandreth, and her great-grandfather, Congressman Aaron Ward, were both New York politicians. Her great-great-grandfather, Elkanah Watson, was a notable New York businessman. Her older brother, George Brandreth Borup (1885-1912), was assistant to Robert Peary on the North Pole Expedition, and wrote a book about his experiences in the Arctic. Yvette Borup was educated in France, Germany, Italy, and New York.[1] One of her school friends at the Kaiserin Auguste Institute was Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia.[2][3]

Career

Yvette Borup Andrews was an ethnographic photographer and filmmaker[4] for the American Museum of Natural History. She was the photographer assigned to the museum's First Asiatic Zoological Expedition (1916-1917), to China, Tibet, and Burma, and the Second Asiatic Zoological Expedition (1918), to Mongolia and North China, both expeditions led by her husband. She developed her still images and films in a portable "rubber darkroom" in the field. In the 1920s she was again in the field with Andrews, as photographer on the museum's Central Asiatic Expeditions. On that trip, she photographed the last Maidari Festival in Ulaanbaatar, creating a valuable historical document of the custom.[1]

Her photographs were published in Camps and Trails in China (1918), a book she co-authored with her husband.[5] More photographs by Andrews appeared in Across Mongolian Plains (1921).[6] Soon after their divorce, Roy Chapman Andrews told an audience that "Physically and intellectually, women may be the equals of men for the work of exploration, but temperamentally they are not. They do not stand up under the little daily annoyances that loom large to them in the somewhat trying work involved on an expedition. The trivialities which men can ignore completely disturb them and prevent them from settling down to hard and conscientious work." The Society of Woman Geographers objected to his observations.[7]

In 1940, she was active with the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, volunteering as a "Minute Woman" at a phone bank to build support for the United States' entry into World War II.[8]

Personal life

Yvette Borup married naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews (1884-1960) in 1914; he was an acquaintance of her late brother.[9] They had two sons, George Borup Andrews (1917-2007) and author Roy Kevin Andrews (1924-1989, born in Beijing), before they divorced in 1931.[10][11] She died in a 1959 traffic accident, near Bahabón de Esgueva, in the province of Burgos, Spain, aged 68 years.[12]

References

1. Lydia Pyne, "Yvette Borup Andrews: Photographing Central Asia", The Public Domain Review (January 10, 2018).
2. "Soulmate of a Princess" The Boston Globe (October 18, 1914): 45. via Newspapers.com
3. "Princess Bewitched by a 'Yankee' Girl" The Atlanta Constitution (June 29, 1913): 3. via Newspapers.com
4. "Take Moving Pictures in Darkest China" Norwich Bulletin (February 11, 1916): 8. via Newspapers.com
5. Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews, Camps and Trails in China: A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure and Sport in Little-Known China (New York & London, 1918).
6. Roy Chapman Andrews, Across Mongolian Plains: A Naturalist's Account of China's "Great Northwest"(D. Appleton and company 1921).
7. "Scientist Andrews Will Try Again to Mix Marriage and Exploration" Laredo Times (June 16, 1935): 14. via NewspaperArchive.com
8. Mary E. Plummer, "U. S. 'Minute Women' in Drive to Aid Britain" The San Francisco Examiner (September 26, 1940): 15. via Newspapers.com
9. "Miss Yvette Borup a Bride" The New York Times (October 8, 1914): 11. via ProQuest
10. "Divorces R. C. Andrews" The New York Times (April 1, 1931): 13. via ProQuest.
11. Hazel Canning, "Unfortunate Divorce of the Man who Discovered Dinosaur Eggs" The Montana Standard (May 24, 1931): 87. via Newspapers.com
12. R. Pérez Barredo, "La trágica muerte en Burgos de la mujer de Indiana Jones" Diario de Burgos (February 14, 2016).

External links

• Yvette Borup Andrews at Find a Grave
• Yvette Borup Andrews at Find a Grave
• Photographs taken by Yvette Borup Andrews and others on various expeditions, in the American Museum of Natural History Research Library, Digital Special Collections.