George Edward Anderson

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.

In 1907 Anderson was called to serve a mission in England. After traveling to the east to board his ship in April 1907, Anderson decided to take photos of religious landmarks. This culminated in almost a year taking photos in the Eastern United States. Anderson left the United States in April 1908 to travel to England where he proselyted and took photos. On March 27, 1910, Anderson was released from his mission, however, he stayed another year and a half while he continued proselyting and documenting the area with photography. Upon his return to America, Anderson took John Collett an eleven-year-old, crippled boy back to the states with him. Anderson returned to the United States setting up a photography studio in South Royalton, Vermont, near the birthplace of LDS prophet Joseph Smith. He added a number of Church history site photographs, as well as portraits of Church members and local residents to his growing collection. In November 1913, almost seven years since Anderson left on his mission, he returned to his family and home in Springville, Utah.

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.

• Illustration — George Edward Anderson's photo of the Smith Family Farm in Manchester, New York • Illustration — Archibald Gardner and family • Illustration — Sacred Grove (1907) • Illustration — A photograph, taken outdoors, of men working on railroad tracks. There are two sets of tracks running horizontally and one set running up a hill to the distance. There is what appears to be a large chute over the two horizontal tracks. The vertical tracks are likely to be mining tracks with a coal car on them. • Illustration — Center Street at 100 West facing west, with a parade on the south side of Center Street. Numerous automobiles line the street and businesses such as Hedquist Drugs, Wilkins Hotel, Taylor Brothers, and Smith Brothers Auto Repair Shop line the street. • Illustration — A man standing next to two horses that are harnessed to a wagon and another man is riding a horse and holding a spare horse behind the wagon. Taken outdoors.