A. O. Carpenter

Life

Aurelius Carpenter was born in 1836 in Vermont. His mother was Clarina I. H. Nichols. As a teenager, he had an apprenticeship at the Windham County Democrat, the newspaper owned by his stepfather, George Nichols.

In 1854 (or 1855 ), Carpenter, his mother, and his brother, Chapin, left Vermont for Kansas, to support abolitionist activities.

Carpenter died in 1919 in Ukiah, California.

Work

Carpenter's work focused on the early development of 19th and 20th century Mendocino County, California. Carpenter photographed panoramas of the coast, forests, and early industry, including logging and shipping. He documented the Pomo people and early white settlers, including Charmian London.

In the 1960s, 700 glass plate negatives of Carpenter's photographers were found in the basement of the Sun House in Ukiah, the home where Carpenter's daughter Grace Hudson and her husband, John Hudson, lived. Local Ukiah photographer Robert Lee gathered the negatives and researched and created prints of the negatives, documenting the subjects seen in the images. It took forty years for Lee to complete the project. As a result, the first exhibition of Carpenter's work was held in 2006 at the Grace Hudson Museum, also celebrating the museum's 20th anniversary.