Lee Passmore

Lee Passmore (January 9, 1874 – December 12, 1958) was an American photographer and field naturalist who worked with scientists and staff at the San Diego Natural History Museum documenting the flora and fauna of southern California. Passmore published photo essays on natural history subjects in popular magazines from the 1920s to the 1940s, and contributed photographs to several natural history monographs. Passmore donated his extensive collection of photographic negatives, glass slides, and Kodachrome transparencies to the San Diego Natural History Museum in 1958; these include significant collections of images on the natural history of the trapdoor spider, the carpenter bee, and the tomato sphinx moth.[1]

Lee Passmore
A smiling man with a large spider on his cheek
Born(1874-01-09)January 9, 1874
Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada
DiedDecember 12, 1958(1958-12-12) (aged 84)
San Diego, California, United States
Other namesLevi Nickerson Passmore
Known forNature photography
Notes

Passmore also photographed life in early 20th-century San Diego; subjects include the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park, Old Town San Diego, the Old Mission Dam, Sunset Cliffs, the tuna industry, and the San Diego harbor and boats. The San Diego Historical Society holds a large number of Passmore's photographs of San Diego subjects (c. 1905–1935).[2]

Biography
Bothriocyrtum californicum (California trapdoor spider), dorsal view

Born Levi Nickerson Passmore (1874) in Ridgetown, Ontario, Canada to American-born father William H. Passmore and Canadian mother Sarah Ann Smith,[3] Passmore was raised in Canada. He married Georgia Preston in 1899;[4] they had a daughter and two sons. Widowed between 1902 and 1910,[5] Passmore emigrated to the United States and opened a photography studio in San Diego in 1908. He married Lida Wickey in 1914.[6]

Photography

Passmore specialized in marine scenes from 1908 to 1912, producing a record of the transport of logs by Benson rafts.[7] Passmore worked as a barker and guide for the Star & Crescent Boat Company's harbor excursions, and produced photographs of San Diego locations for the Union-Title Insurance & Trust Company.[8]

In 1914, Passmore discovered flume tiles at the Old Mission Dam (in what is now Mission Trails Regional Park). His photographs provide a record of the method used to transport water from the dam to the mission in the early 1800s.[8][9] From the 1930s, Passmore focused his interest on field photography of natural history subjects, particularly insects and spiders. He was a charter member of the San Diego Natural History Museum and an early member of the San Diego Zoological Society.[8]

Passmore died on December 12, 1958, in San Diego, California.

Selected bibliography
  • Dunn, H.H.; Passmore, Lee (October 1929). "Winged kings of a bird empire". Popular Mechanics: 626–629.
  • Passmore, Lee (August 1933). "California trapdoor spider performs engineering marvels". National Geographic. LXIV (2): 195.
  • Passmore, Lee (1935). Grosvenor, Gilbert (ed.). "California trapdoor spider," Our insect friends and foes and spiders. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society.
  • Passmore, Lee (1936). "Tarantula and tarantula hawk". Nature. 27: 155–159.
  • Passmore, Lee (October 1938). "Jumping spiders". Popular Science: [102–103].
  • Passmore, Lee (1939). "The tarantula molts". Nature. 32: 151–152.
  • Emans, Elaine V.; Young, Viola A.; Passmore, Lee; Kuehn, O.C. (1940). About spiders : introducing Arachne. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.
  • Passmore, Lee (April 29, 1946). "Insect battles – Microphotographs show how spiders kill flies and wasps kill spiders". Life: 79–82.
  • Passmore, Lee. "A picture story of the mud-dauber wasp". Lee Passmore, Photographer & Naturalist. n.d.
  • Passmore, Lee. "The black widow spider". Lee Passmore, Photographer & Naturalist. n.d.
  • Passmore, Lee; Beck, F.E. "The life of a trap-door spider". Lee Passmore, Photographer & Naturalist. n.d.

See also
  • Boone, Andrew R. (March 1937). "Photographer of Insects Records Life Dramas of Strange Creatures". Popular Science Monthly: 36–37, 125–125.
  • "Daring Cameraman Snaps Animals on Desolate Isle". Popular Science Monthly: 48. May 1931.

References
  1. Lawson, I. Norman. "Letter (gift acknowledgement, 15 July 1958)". Lee Passmore, Photographer & Naturalist.
  2. Williams, Gregory L. (1998). "Guide to the photograph collections of the San Diego Historical Society". Journal of San Diego History. 44 (2 & 3).
  3. "Ontario Birth Registrations, Archives of Ontario". Ontario Vital Statistics Project (hosted by RootsWeb).
  4. "Ontario Marriages, 1869–1927. Levi N Passmore and Georgie Preston, 07 May 1899; citing registration, Harwich, Kent, Ontario, Canada, Archives of Ontario, Toronto". FamilySearch.
  5. "United States Census, 1910, Lee Passmore (ED 161, sheet 6B, NARA microfilm publication T624)". FamilySearch.
  6. "California Marriage Records". Rootsweb.
  7. Andrews, Ralph W. (1965). Photographers of the frontier west: Their lives and works, 1875 to 1915. Seattle, Wash.: Superior Publishing. p. 135. See also Passmore's photos of the Benson Timber Company's log rafts, pp. 136–140.
  8. "Levi Passmore, Lecturer-Writer, Succumbs at 83". San Diego Evening Tribune. December 13, 1958.
  9. Jenkins, Julian D. "San Diego Old Mission Dam- Vintage Photos and Diagram". Lee Passmore.
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