George Edward Anderson

George Edward Anderson was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and apprenticed as a teenager under photographer Charles Roscoe Savage.

[2]: 11 [1][3] At seventeen, Anderson established his photography studio in Salt Lake City with his brothers, Stanley and Adam.

[4] 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.

After traveling to the east to board his ship in April 1907, Anderson decided to take photos of religious landmarks.

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.

Anderson returned to the United States setting up a photography studio in South Royalton, Vermont, near the birthplace of LDS prophet Joseph Smith.

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.

Landscape photography was not Anderson's main interest, but his photographs of Church sites are important documents of LDS history.

The Deseret Sunday School Union of the Church published some of the views, as Anderson called them, in a booklet entitled The Birth of Mormonism in Picture.

[1] Charles Reynolds, picture editor of the Popular Photography magazine, commented at a Brigham Young University photo seminar on 11 December 1973 about his introduction to Anderson's photographs.

After attending an exhibition at the Springville Museum of Art, arranged by Rell Francis, he said "I go to shows several times a week in New York City .