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Seeing Yosemite with David Curry - 1916

Seeing Yosemite with David A. Curry (1916) Film Credit

​Arthur C. Pillsbury produced his first nature movie in 1909, showing it on the porch of the Studio of the Three Arrows.  The film shorts narrated by Pillsbury became a don't miss attraction for tourists and people around the nation, Canada, England, and elsewhere as Pillsbury's use of film to bring nature and the processes of life to the people grew in depth.  

Pillsbury also produced short films for Yosemite merchants, such as David Curry, who asked Pillsbury to do a series for him in late 1915.  This film, provided with some captions, by Jennifer Peterson, an assistant professor at the University of Boulder provides some insights into the way Pillsbury used a movie camera.  

Aunt Grace and other family members appear in the short film.  Aunt Grace also appears in this photo along with other figures as a celebration of a decade marking a new freedom for women, something Arthur C. Pillsbury supported all of his life.  

​From the National Film Foundation Website, and film produced for David Curry by the Pillsbury Picture Company 


Girls Wearing Pants  
L - R, Arthur C. Pillsbury, dressed as a girl in pants. Lorraine ?, Ellen Boysen, and Grace Pillsbury, girls all wearing pants for the first time.  This was the result of the first women climbing Half Dome that year.  Arthur C. Pillsbury was a strong believer women could do anything and needed the correct equipment, in this instance, pants.