A short documentary created by filmmaker Robin Lung that beautifully articulates the significance of preserving the Nancy Bannick Photograph Collection. The Collection features newly digitized photographs from the 1950s1970s by community advocate Nancy Bannick.

Nancy Bannick: Journalist, Preservationist and Advocate
Nancy Bannick is remembered as a fierce advocate for the arts and as an activist who helped preserve Hawai‘i’s sense of place, even before the phrase came into use. Though she may not have been able to save everything she fought for–and her brusque, notimetowaste MO did not make her universally beloved–nonetheless, she was a heroic doer, and her accomplishments are worthy of respect and deeper contemplation.

As the Hawai‘i editor for Sunset Magazine from 1952 to 1974, Bannick traveled the Islands and around the Pacific taking photographs of people, places and events with a particular focus on scenic, historic, cultural and natural resources. While her early photographs had a commercialized tilt, portraying an idealized view of the Islands, her later work focused on capturing images of every day gathering places, street scenes and ordinary life in postwar Hawai‘i in order to show its true richness and significance. Her images are an honest reflection of humanity–something which has become increasingly undervalued.

The trajectory of Bannick’s experiences compelled her towards community activism. Witnessing the wave of change of the 1950s1970s as Hawai‘i’s landscape shifted from the rural towns of the plantation era to tourism and high rises, Bannick became an outspoken voice in preserving places through organizations like the Friends of the Natatorium, the Kapi‘olani Park Preservation Society and Historic Hawai‘i Foundation. Her photographs became part of her toolbox–or arsenal, depending on the audience. Slideshows were the new technology of the day and Bannick adeptly made use of them to showcase her message and remind people of the beauty of Hawai‘i’s unique places and people that was worth fighting for.

About The Bannick Collection At The Hawai‘i State Archives
Over the years, Nancy Bannick donated hundreds of photographs and other items to the Hawai‘i State Archives. After her passing in 2008, Bannick’s estate executors offered Historic Hawai‘i Foundation a collection of slides and photographs and informed HHF that Bannick wished the remaining images to be archived and made available for research, public education and advocacy for historic preservation.

Historic Hawai‘i Foundation is pleased to honor her request by making her photographs available to the public through the State Archives. Preparing this collection for digitization required a tremendous amount of intensive labor to clean and process approximately 3,200 images. An additional batch will be released at a later date.