George Shiras III

George Shiras III
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 29th district
In office March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1905
Preceded by	district created
Succeeded by	William Harrison Graham
Personal details
Born	(1859-01-01)January 1, 1859 Allegheny, Pennsylvania
Died	March 24, 1942(1942-03-24) (aged 83) Marquette, Michigan
Political party	Independent Republican
Parent	George Shiras Jr. (father)
Education	Cornell University, Yale Law School
Occupation	photographer, lawyer

George Shiras III (January 1, 1859 – March 24, 1942) was a U.S. Representative from the state of Pennsylvania and nature photographer who pioneered the use of nighttime flash photography.

Biography

George Shiras (son of future Supreme Court justice George Shiras Jr.) was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. He attended the public schools and Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1881 and from the law department of Yale College in 1883.

He was admitted to the Connecticut and Pennsylvania bars in 1883 and commenced the practice of his profession in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He served as a member of the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 1889 and 1890, but was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for Congress in 1890.

Shiras was elected as an Independent Republican to the Fifty-eighth Congress. He did not seek renomination in 1904.

He passed away in Marquette, Michigan on the March 24, 1942, and was interred at the Park Cemetery.

Photography

Both during and after his time in Congress, Shiras participated in biological research and photography, to the extent that National Geographic has described him as "the father of wildlife photography" for his early use of camera traps and flash photography.

On February 14, 1906, Shiras was elected Associate Member of the Boone and Crockett Club, a conservation organization founded by Theodore Roosevelt in 1887. He was credited with the discovery of a moose subspecies in Yellowstone National Park, which was named Alces alces shirasi, Shiras's Moose.

In 1935, Shiras published Hunting Wild Life with Camera and Flashlight: a Record of Sixty Five years' Visits to the Woods and Waters of North America, a two-volume set of over 960 of his wildlife photographs, including some of the earliest 'flash' photography.

Collections of his papers are held at the National Library of Medicine and the Central Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives.

References

Sources

• United States Congress. "George Shiras III (id: S000370)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The Political Graveyard
• "Michigan Death Certificates, 1921-1952," database, FamilySearch