George Edward Anderson

George Edward Anderson (October 28, 1860 – May 9, 1928) was an early American photographer known for his portraiture and documentary photographs of early historical sites of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and Utah settlements.

Biography George Edward Anderson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and apprenticed as a teenager under photographer Charles Roscoe Savage. At Savage's Art Bazar Studio, Anderson became friends with fellow apprentices John Hafen and John F. Bennett. Hafen later become an accomplished artist and Bennett was instrumental in preserving Anderson's glass plate negatives.

At seventeen, Anderson established his photography studio in Salt Lake City with his brothers, Stanley and Adam. The railroad allowed Anderson to establish tent studios in Manti, Utah, Springville, Utah, and Nephi, Utah. In 1886 Anderson opened a stationary studio he named Temple Bazar in Manti where the LDS Church was building a new temple. While in Manti he met Olive Lowry, whom he married on May 30, 1888. They were the second couple to be married in the newly finished Mormon temple in Manti, Utah. Later that year Anderson sold his Manti studio and moved to Springville. There, Anderson employed apprentices, some of which went on to become well-known photographers, such as Elife Huntington and Joseph Bagley. Anderson used his traveling tent studio, setting up in small towns throughout central, eastern, and southern Utah, where he documented the lives of residents in the years 1884 to 1907.

Later years After a seven-year absence his photographic business was unhealthy and his family life was strained. Business and money were not Anderson's motivating forces; art and religion were. Continuing to experience financial and marital strains, Anderson tried to revive his traveling tent studio but with little success. He was able to earn some money from the sale of The Birth of Mormonism booklet, which he published many years before. The last years of Anderson's life were spent in documenting families and life in Utah Valley and traveling to newly constructed temples. In 1923 he traveled to Cardston, Alberta, Canada with LDS Church authorities for the dedication of that city's LDS temple. He spent two years in Canada, returning to Springville in 1925. He became ill in the fall of 1927, and despite his wife's urging not to go, Anderson went with LDS Church officials to document the dedication of a temple in Mesa, Arizona. It was his last trip. He died of heart failure on May 9, 1928, after being brought home to Springville, Utah.

Selected works