Nelson E. Edwards

Nelson Elisha Edwards (November 25, 1887 – October 17, 1954) was one of the first newsreel cameramen in American film history. From 1914 he filmed for Hearst’s International News Service. Edwards filmed the Turkish and German side of World War I.

Nelson Elisha Edwards was born in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, on November 25, 1887. The Edwards family moved to Kansas by covered wagon when Nelson was only six months old. Nelson left the family farm in 1908 to learn photography in Kansas City. From New Orleans, he moved to New York City, where in 1912 he was working as a press photographer for the Hearst newspapers. His first major film assignment was in 1914 when Edwards covered the Mexican war. In December 1915, he sailed with Henry Ford’s Peace Ship to Europe and filmed inside the Ottoman Empire and on the Western Front with the German army. While in Germany, Edwards covered the aftermath of the Battle of Jutland and filmed the German Navy in Wilhemshaven as well as the German Naval High Command.

Newsreel Pioneer Nelson E. Edwards - A Life in Pictures (1887-1954)

On his return to America, Edwards joined the Army in December 1917. He was chief cameraman for Fox News in 1919. From 1923, he started his own photographic agency in Baltimore, combining freelance photography with newsreel work. Edwards covered the early transatlantic flights, as well as Charles Lindbergh’s return from Paris in 1935. He was a member of the White House Press Photographers Association and covered every inauguration from President Theodore Roosevelt to Harry Truman.

Nelson Edwards died near Reisterstown, Maryland, on October 17, 1954, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Film work

Edward’s work as a still photographer and newsreel cameraman covers almost half a century. A tall, muscular man with prominent cheekbones and thick black hair, Nelson Edwards was among the first pioneering newsreel cameramen in the United States. His personal papers and scrapbooks, which contain early American newsreel information, are still in the family collection.

While preparing their book American Cinematographers in the Great War, film historians Cooper C. Graham and Ron van Dopperen researched Edwards’ life and work, based on these personal family documents, as well as files at the German archives.

In 2012, a detailed military report on Edwards’ film work at the Western Front was discovered by the authors in the Federal Archives in Berlin.

In 2018, newsreel footage from the German Messter film studio, that was probably shot by Edwards, was found by the authors, showing a visit by Field Marshal Von Mackensen to Turkey in 1916.