One Grand Adventure: Photographs of Ellen Johanna Larson Smith

by Christine Cox, Visitor and Reference Services Manager
11 September 2018

In this post, Christine Cox highlights a unique photograph collection and discusses how acquiring the collection introduced historians to its determined, pioneering creator.

Nothing stirs the heart like looking at an old photograph, especially one that tells a story. A photo collection I have come to appreciate and love in the Church History Library is a glass-plate negative collection of Snowflake, Arizona, taken by Ellen Johanna Larson Smith circa 1880–1930. She created a social portrait of the community of Snowflake, Arizona, capturing life and humanity in ways rarely seen during this time period.

Ellen Johanna Larson Smith photographs; Snowflake, Arizona, glass-plate negative collection, circa 1880–1930

This collection was acquired by a staff member traveling through Arizona in 1996. When it was acquired, very little was known about the photographer and the images. Library staff knew only that the images were of places and buildings in and around Snowflake, Arizona, and that many of the individuals in the photographs were members of the Jesse N. Smith family.

Since acquiring the collection, we have learned a lot about the photographer and the images. The photographer, Ellen Johanna Larson Smith, was born in 1868, the daughter of Swedish handcart pioneers. She was a plural wife of Silas Smith and the mother of nine children. She faced the hardships of homestead life, deaths of children, and long-term separations from her husband. Her remarkable story is featured in volume three of Women of Faith in the Latter Days, available in the open stacks at the Church History Library or for purchase online or in bookstores.

With the rise of antipolygamy laws, Silas and his second family took the opportunity to homestead in Utah. Ellen and six of her nine children remained in Snowflake. She obtained a camera and created a successful photography studio, which helped provide for her children.

By using her innate creativity to capture day-to-day events as they transpired, she left a legacy unlike other photographers of her day. She broke traditional boundaries in photography by capturing joyful moments and everyday life in nontraditional ways. She documented everyday people doing everyday things as well as events depicting the town’s history that would have otherwise been lost.

She sent photographs of common, daily happenings to her husband during their long absences. On one occasion, he wrote to her, “My pictures you send are fine. I can see every detail … the cows in the yard up to their knees in muck and mire, … the trails in the deep snow high above the head. … My such beauty and comfort … surely, I feel now the fascination of it and can really see it all in my mind’s eye.”1

This photo collection is available in digital format through the Church History Catalog under the call number PH 4882. Since it has been posted electronically, many of the once-unknown individuals in the images have been identified by descendants and extended family and friends. It is a treasured collection capturing unique images of the era. Photographs are a valuable historical resource, and this collection is just one of the 14,929 photograph collections currently preserved at the Church History Library.

[1] Richard E. Turley Jr. and Brittany A. Chapman, eds., Women of Faith in the Latter Days: Volume Three, 1846–1870 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014), 203.