Forgetten Legacy of Yvette 2026

The Forgotten Legacy of Yvette Expedition 2026: A Cultural Heritage Documentation Journey

Roy Chapman Andrews was not the only Andrews exploring Mongolia in the 1920s. His wife, Yvette Borup Andrews (1891–1959), was an explorer and photographer who played an important role in documenting these early expeditions.

Born in Paris and educated in France, Germany, Italy, and New York, Yvette married Roy Chapman Andrews in 1914. She served as the official photographer for two American Museum of Natural History expeditions: the First Asiatic Zoological Expedition (1916–1917) to China and Tibet, and the Second (1918–1919) to Mongolia and northern China.

Through photographs and early motion-picture films, she captured landscapes, local people, and everyday life. She even carried a portable darkroom into the field to develop her photographs during these challenging journeys.

A Lost Festival, Preserved on Film
Among her most historically significant work are the photographs she and fellow expedition member James Shackelford took of the Maidari Festival in Urga (modern-day Ulaanbaatar) in 1922 — a major Buddhist religious celebration. Due to the political turmoil that followed, it was never performed again, making their images the only surviving visual record of the last Maidari Festival ever held. Her photographs remain part of the American Museum of Natural History's archive today, offering a rare ethnographic window into early-20th-century Mongolia.

Retracing Her Footsteps in 2026
A century later, "The Forgotten Legacy of Yvette Expedition" set out to Mongolia's Khentii region to examine how its cultural heritage has changed since Yvette's time, with fieldwork organized around three research themes:
🐎 Mongolian Horse Culture — how horses connect landscape, livelihood, and identity in the Khentii region, viewing people, animals, and land as one living, interconnected heritage
🏇 The Mongol Empire — studying Khentii, birthplace of Genghis Khan and home to the sacred Burkhan Khaldun mountain, as a living cultural landscape where historical memory and the legacy of the Mongol Empire (1206–1368) and its era of Eurasian peace, the Pax Mongolica, remain deeply present
👩 Women's Role in Mongolian Society — tracing the historical influence of women in Khentii: both of the Bogd Khan's queens, Dondogdulam and Genepil, were born in this region, and a memorial site, the Mongol Queen Palace, was built there in 2011 to honor Mongolia's historic queens
The research was led by Gerelmaa Erdenechuluun, Professor of Ethnography at the Mongolian National University of Arts and Culture, whose past work includes research for the British Museum on the traditional craft of Mongolian wooden infant cradles and documentation of Mongolia's traditional milk-fermentation rituals.

Why It Matters
As one line from the expedition's own materials puts it:
"Legacy is not what we leave behind, but what we inspire others to carry forward."
A century after Yvette Borup Andrews first photographed Mongolia, her quiet, often-overlooked legacy is finally being carried forward — not just as a footnote to her husband's expeditions, but as a research journey in its own right.

Appreciation
Thank you to J Robert Harris, the Explorers Club's DEI Committee and the Society of Forgotten Explorers, to Beth Davidow for carrying it to Mongolia. To Mary McBride for her research into Yvette’s life and story and to the American Museum of Natural History archives for granting us access to her work.
Thank you to Bob Atwater for initiating this expedition with Saruul B Srl and Nomadify Expeditions, to Gerelmaa Erdenechuluun for leading our team through Mongolia's Indigenous heritage with her guidance and deep knowledge and to every member who helped document endangered heritage along Yvette's route.