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The Arthur C. Pillsbury Collection
Brigham Young University
On Monday, November 28 - Saturday, December 2nd, Melinda spent days at the Horace B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University at Special Collections viewing the Pillsbury photos, letters and other items which were sold within hours of his death. When Dr. Arthur F. Pillsbury, Arthur C's son arrived, having driven up upon being notified his father had died suddenly, AEtheline was trying to sell the grandfather clock, which had been in the family since before the American Revolution.
Distressed at having these essential records sold, along with all of the original cameras his father had built, Dr. Pillsbury asked for the identity of the purchaser. AEtheline refused to divulge the information.
Father occasionally looked for signs of the collection but never spoke of his feelings on this until after reading a book by Shirley Sargent on the Concessionaires of Yosemite in the late 1970s.
Father did not learn the photos had been found until the late 1980's. This information was known to both Virginia and Ansel Adams who sent an associate of their's Steve Harrison, to BYU in an attempt to purchase the collection through him for themselves. Harrison learned the collection was at BYU from Virginia, who was told by Ansel who had learned of this from Mr. Rell G. Francis of Springville, Utah.
Harrison did not tell Dr. Pillsbury, although he was in close communication with him at the time. Read these letters for yourself.
1978 - 1993
Arthur C. Pillsbury Foundation
See images lost to the Pillsbury family since 1946, now available. An issue of IMAGE will cover the full details and let you know about exciting revelations stemming from Melinda Pillsbury-Foster's week-long survey of the material.
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Prolific Yosemite photographer’s work stored in HBLL Special by Kiersten Johnson, The Universe
Arthur C. Pillsbury was not only a photographer and inventor, he was a social visionary committed to ensuring people everywhere had access to information. Arthur C. Pillsbury was not only a photographer and inventor, he was a social visionary committed to ensuring people everywhere had access to information.on. Arthur C. Pillsbury was not only a photographer and inventor, he was a social visionary committed to ensuring people everywhere had access to information.
Today we say, "Open Source." He called it The Knowledge Commons.
The vision Pillsbury had for the National Parks was one which placed them in the forefront of placing the tools for knowledge in the hands of the people, directly. Not limiting this to some lectures by less than exciting Park Rangers, he saw the Parks as a place where edge technologies could be used to awaken a love of nature along with real understanding of the complex systems of plants, animals, insects, microbes and all parts of the living and inorganic world.
His lectures on these subjects held his audiences spell-bound, fascinated by the world which existed just beyond their eyes.
This is his story, a story of a vision now within our grasps.
Questions & Answers
If you don't do the research
required you do not find the
answers. On the Inquiry
Page you can provide answers
ask questions, and help fill in
the holes in the stories you
find here.
Yosemite - October 14 - 16 - 1912
National Park Superintendents meet in Yosemite. The first film showing flowers blooming, using lapse-time, is shown on the afternoon of the 16th.
If you wonderful there was no Centennial, so do we. See Questions to be answered.
- Ansel Adams to Mr. Rell G. Francis
Adams writes, "Thank you very much for your interesting letter of October 19th. I knew Mr. Pillsbury very well indeed when he had his studio and shop in Yosemite where he had developed his lapse-time photography of flowers."
The Life of Arthur C. Pillsbury
1892 - Stanford University
1895 - First trip to Yosemite
1897 - Circuit Panorama Camera
1898 - 1899 - The Gold Rush
1897 - 1899 - Alaska's first people
1899 - Meeting John Muir
1906 - A Trip Down Market Street
The Studio of the Three Arrows - in Yosemite
1908 - May 6 - The Great White Fleet enters S.F. Bay
1909 - The First Nature Movie
1911 - June - Reporter Cleve Shaffer reports Adolph Sutro and
Mr. Kierulf are building a plane which would be flown at
the Pacific Exposition in 1915. A. Kneiling and ACP were
building an original biplane and motor. (Guess who was
building the motor.)
1911 - September 3 - Arthur's brother, Dr. Ernest S.
Pillsbury is killed.
November 13 - Arthur legally adopts his brother's
children. Adoption Papers
1912 - The First Lapse-Time Camera - The Wildflowers
October 14 - 16 - Superintendents Conference,
Yosemite - First showing Lapse-Time flowers
1913 - Photographing Hawaii - Sunset Magazine
1915 - David Curry and the Movie
AC Presents his film and lecture to the National Press
Club, October 21. Mather also makes a brief presentation
The invention is in use at the Studio in Old Village.
Pillsbury's son, Arthur Francis Pillsbury, is the operator.
1922 - Nov. 22 -Mass Production real Photo Post Card Machine
Patent application is requested.
1923 - September - August - President Harding
1924 - Pillsbury's Pictures - New Village
May 24 - Article in the Mariposa Gazette
1926 - Feb. 23 - Photo Postcard Machine - Patent granted.
March 15 - Lectures to President Coolidge. Willard Hotel, Washington D. C. A Motion Picture Director for Microbes
1930 - Underwater Camera and movie
1942 - Osmosis in Plants
"To see a flower blossoming, its life so like our own, awakens in us a love for the flower, and the wish to preserve it." - A.C. Pillsbury
There is History - and there is
All Material on this site is protected by Registration with the WGA West, Writers Guild of America, Registration Number 1940540
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