WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.220 Welcome to the deep dive. So I want you to picture 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:06.160 something. In the winter of 1928, there's this 00:00:06.160 --> 00:00:09.429 massive chemical fire. I mean, it is tearing 00:00:09.429 --> 00:00:12.730 through an Auckland roof cop, completely incinerating 00:00:12.730 --> 00:00:15.509 the developing room of New Zealand's most prolific 00:00:15.509 --> 00:00:17.809 photographer. Right, a really catastrophic blaze. 00:00:18.089 --> 00:00:20.949 Exactly. We're talking about a fire so fierce 00:00:20.949 --> 00:00:24.170 that newspaper headlines were detailing how families 00:00:24.170 --> 00:00:26.690 were literally fleeing for their lives across 00:00:26.690 --> 00:00:29.750 neighboring roofs. Oh, wow. Yeah. And in just 00:00:29.750 --> 00:00:32.350 a matter of minutes, the master negatives, the 00:00:32.350 --> 00:00:35.490 absolute core of this decades long visual empire, 00:00:35.890 --> 00:00:38.479 they were just gone. turned ash. Completely wiped 00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:41.439 out. Right. But here's the crazy part. If you 00:00:41.439 --> 00:00:43.909 look through historical archives today... We 00:00:43.909 --> 00:00:45.850 still have access to thousands upon thousands 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:48.090 of his photographs perfectly preserved. It's 00:00:48.090 --> 00:00:50.210 incredible really. It is. So the big question 00:00:50.210 --> 00:00:52.929 is how does a man whose entire catalog went up 00:00:52.929 --> 00:00:55.670 in flames manage to save his legacy? Well, he 00:00:55.670 --> 00:00:58.009 essentially did it by accidentally inventing 00:00:58.009 --> 00:01:01.670 a decentralized analog cloud. Yes, and that brings 00:01:01.670 --> 00:01:04.890 us to our topic today. We are exploring the life, 00:01:05.250 --> 00:01:08.069 the aggressive entrepreneurial hustle, and the 00:01:08.069 --> 00:01:11.109 literal trial by fire of William Archer Price. 00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:14.700 Our source for this is a really concise but detail 00:01:14.700 --> 00:01:17.120 -rich Wikipedia article. Which is packed with 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.239 fascinating little breadcrumbs. It really is. 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:21.579 And the mission of this deep dive is to look 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:25.280 past this simple timeline of a man's life, you 00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:27.879 know, traced through newspaper clippings and 00:01:27.879 --> 00:01:30.319 old street addresses, to understand how he engineered 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:32.939 a business model so resilient that it outlived 00:01:32.939 --> 00:01:35.439 the destruction of his own studio. It's such 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:38.420 a phenomenal case study in preservation through 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:41.140 distribution. And to really set the stage for 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:43.420 you as you listen, imagine the visual backdrop 00:01:43.420 --> 00:01:45.560 for our deep dive today. Oh, I like this. Paint 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:48.260 the picture. So we're looking at a classic sepia 00:01:48.260 --> 00:01:50.140 tone New Zealand landscape. You've got rolling 00:01:50.140 --> 00:01:52.939 hills, turn of the century architecture, steam 00:01:52.939 --> 00:01:55.519 rising off a river. But as you look closer, that 00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:58.140 landscape dissolves into this massive wall made 00:01:58.140 --> 00:02:00.760 entirely of vintage postcards. Thousands of them, 00:02:00.760 --> 00:02:03.859 right? Stacked thousands high and thousands wide. 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:07.140 Because as we trace Price's movements from the 00:02:07.140 --> 00:02:10.159 late 19th to the mid 20th century, we aren't 00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:13.120 just analyzing a biography, we are tracking the 00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:15.719 evolution of an entire country's visual memory. 00:02:16.139 --> 00:02:18.879 We are watching a nation learn to see itself. 00:02:19.099 --> 00:02:22.159 Okay, let's unpack this because the sheer volume 00:02:22.159 --> 00:02:25.000 of his work we are dealing with is staggering. 00:02:25.639 --> 00:02:29.199 I mean, Price was born in 1866, but the records, 00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:31.979 the real undeniable paper trail of his visual 00:02:31.979 --> 00:02:34.719 dominance, they don't really ignite until he's 00:02:34.719 --> 00:02:37.300 about 40 years old. Right, right, around 1906. 00:02:37.580 --> 00:02:40.240 Exactly, 1906. And if you've ever scrolled through 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:42.360 thousands of photos on your phone, imagine doing 00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:44.740 that back then. You have to picture the physical 00:02:44.740 --> 00:02:46.740 reality of what taking thousands of photographs 00:02:46.740 --> 00:02:49.699 actually meant in 1906. It's not pulling a smartphone 00:02:49.699 --> 00:02:52.020 out of your pocket. Not at all. You are lugging 00:02:52.020 --> 00:02:54.139 around a heavy wooden field camera. You're dealing 00:02:54.139 --> 00:02:56.699 with a heavy tripod, focusing cloths, and most 00:02:56.699 --> 00:02:58.919 importantly, glass plates. And that physical 00:02:58.919 --> 00:03:00.979 constraint is just vital to understand because 00:03:00.979 --> 00:03:03.340 by 1906, the industry had largely transitioned 00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:05.500 away from the old wet plate process. Which was 00:03:05.500 --> 00:03:07.759 a nightmare, right? Oh, an absolute nightmare. 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:10.879 The wet plate collodion process required a photographer 00:03:10.879 --> 00:03:13.599 to practically drag a darkroom tent with them 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:16.020 everywhere they went, but they had moved to the 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:18.479 gelatin dry plate process. Which changed everything. 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.180 It did. Dry plates were revolutionary because 00:03:21.180 --> 00:03:23.599 they could be prepared in advance, exposed in 00:03:23.599 --> 00:03:26.560 the field, and then developed much later. This 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:29.180 technological shift is exactly what allowed a 00:03:29.180 --> 00:03:31.360 photographer like Price to leave the studio, 00:03:31.580 --> 00:03:34.300 get out into the world, and operate with a newfound 00:03:34.300 --> 00:03:36.419 agility. And we really see that agility in the 00:03:36.419 --> 00:03:38.780 very first major detail the source highlights 00:03:38.780 --> 00:03:42.159 from 1906. It points to a specific photograph 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:45.379 of a paddle steamer. Ah, the Manowai. Yes, the 00:03:45.379 --> 00:03:47.979 paddle steamer Manowai out on the Wanganui River. 00:03:47.979 --> 00:03:50.900 and its decks are absolutely packed with passengers. 00:03:51.580 --> 00:03:53.599 Alongside that, we see a mention in the Wanganui 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:56.319 Herald on February 9th, 1906, connecting him 00:03:56.319 --> 00:03:58.539 to something called a baker's picnic. Right, 00:03:58.620 --> 00:04:01.180 which sounds so quaint. It does. At first glance, 00:04:01.319 --> 00:04:03.419 a local picnic for bakers in a boat ride just 00:04:03.419 --> 00:04:06.860 sound like charming, hyper -local trivia. But 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:09.400 let me ask you, this is capturing a paddle steamer, 00:04:09.659 --> 00:04:11.599 the equivalent of a viral post that launched 00:04:11.599 --> 00:04:14.189 his brand. Well, what's fascinating here is that 00:04:14.189 --> 00:04:16.490 Price wasn't just an artist, you know. He was 00:04:16.490 --> 00:04:19.129 a really sharp entrepreneur capitalizing on a 00:04:19.129 --> 00:04:22.000 new medium. He wasn't setting up a camera in 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:24.660 a studio and waiting for wealthy patrons to walk 00:04:24.660 --> 00:04:27.100 in for a portrait. He's going to where the crowds 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:30.639 already are. A captive audience. Exactly. A paddle 00:04:30.639 --> 00:04:32.920 steamer full of passengers is a captive audience 00:04:32.920 --> 00:04:36.399 having a novel experience. A baker's picnic is 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:39.579 a massive, organized community gathering. He 00:04:39.579 --> 00:04:42.759 is capturing these highly populated events because 00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:45.519 every single face in that crowd is a potential 00:04:45.519 --> 00:04:48.279 customer. A customer who is going to want a physical 00:04:48.279 --> 00:04:53.019 memento of that specific day. And the mechanism 00:04:53.019 --> 00:04:55.819 he used to deliver that Rimento is the real genius 00:04:55.819 --> 00:04:58.980 of the story. Because 1906 is also the year the 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:01.420 source notes that he began publishing his photographs 00:05:01.420 --> 00:05:04.339 as early postcards. Which was a huge boon industry 00:05:04.339 --> 00:05:06.930 at the time. Huge. And I think people often try 00:05:06.930 --> 00:05:10.129 to compare early postcards to modern social media. 00:05:10.370 --> 00:05:12.410 They'll call it the Instagram of the early 1900s 00:05:12.410 --> 00:05:14.089 is how people shared experiences, right? Yeah, 00:05:14.149 --> 00:05:16.629 that comparison gets made a lot. But honestly, 00:05:16.769 --> 00:05:18.990 I feel like that analogy is fundamentally flawed. 00:05:19.490 --> 00:05:21.829 Because Instagram sits on a central server. If 00:05:21.829 --> 00:05:24.209 you want to see a photo, you have to go to the 00:05:24.209 --> 00:05:26.189 platform. That's a good point. What Price was 00:05:26.189 --> 00:05:28.629 doing was entirely different. It was much closer 00:05:28.629 --> 00:05:30.629 to setting up a peer -to -peer mesh network. 00:05:30.990 --> 00:05:33.310 He wasn't relying on a gallery or a single heavy 00:05:33.310 --> 00:05:36.939 photo album. By printing his photographs on postcards, 00:05:37.459 --> 00:05:39.680 he was weaponizing the postal service. Yeah, 00:05:39.980 --> 00:05:41.959 weaponizing the mail to distribute his work, 00:05:42.100 --> 00:05:45.040 it was a self -replicating business model. Every 00:05:45.040 --> 00:05:47.500 time someone bought a postcard of the Manuai 00:05:47.500 --> 00:05:49.860 and mailed it to their aunt in another town, 00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:53.189 they were unknowingly creating an off -site backup 00:05:53.189 --> 00:05:55.810 of his archive. It's brilliant. And the postal 00:05:55.810 --> 00:05:58.829 system in the early 1900s was incredibly robust. 00:05:58.970 --> 00:06:01.310 You had multiple deliveries a day in some urban 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:03.470 areas. Wait, multiple times a day? Oh, yeah. 00:06:03.649 --> 00:06:06.029 Postcards were cheap to send, highly visual and 00:06:06.029 --> 00:06:08.089 highly consumable. They were effectively the 00:06:08.089 --> 00:06:11.209 text messages of their era. And Price recognized 00:06:11.209 --> 00:06:14.079 that he could mass produce a local event. turn 00:06:14.079 --> 00:06:16.899 it into a physical commodity, and inject it straight 00:06:16.899 --> 00:06:18.959 into this high -speed communication network. 00:06:19.220 --> 00:06:22.160 So he wasn't just selling art, he was facilitating 00:06:22.160 --> 00:06:25.379 communication. Exactly. And he branded it so 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:28.500 aggressively right out of the gate. The source 00:06:28.500 --> 00:06:31.160 tells us his early postcards were officially 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:34.259 imprinted with this really formal title. Let 00:06:34.259 --> 00:06:37.180 me read it. The WAP Color Photographic Series, 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:40.740 Onganui Photo Co NZ. It has a very official ring 00:06:40.740 --> 00:06:43.500 to it. It sounds formidable. It sounds like an 00:06:43.500 --> 00:06:47.420 institution. Calling it the WAP Series implies 00:06:47.420 --> 00:06:49.600 that this isn't just a one -off picture of boat. 00:06:49.800 --> 00:06:53.040 You know, it implies a vast catalog that you, 00:06:53.139 --> 00:06:55.079 the consumer, should want to collect. It creates 00:06:55.079 --> 00:06:57.920 immediate authority. Every piece of card stock 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.120 that travels through the mail carries that imprint. 00:07:00.519 --> 00:07:02.980 It is a self -funding marketing campaign stretching 00:07:02.980 --> 00:07:05.339 across the country. But of course, to capitalize 00:07:05.339 --> 00:07:08.050 on this viral success. Price couldn't just stay 00:07:08.050 --> 00:07:10.389 in Wanganui. No. Once you capture a local market, 00:07:10.449 --> 00:07:12.370 you hit a ceiling. You have to expand. Which 00:07:12.370 --> 00:07:14.870 brings us to a period of geographic movement 00:07:14.870 --> 00:07:17.250 that honestly gave me whiplash just looking at 00:07:17.250 --> 00:07:19.250 the timeline. It's a very chaotic few years. 00:07:19.569 --> 00:07:22.889 Between 1908 and 1923, Price goes on what looks 00:07:22.889 --> 00:07:26.110 like a frantic migration. Let's trace the geography 00:07:26.110 --> 00:07:28.430 here because it's a lot. He starts in Wanganui. 00:07:29.209 --> 00:07:32.550 By 1908, the Waikato Independent references a 00:07:32.550 --> 00:07:35.970 change in his imprint to Oganui -Fotoko, Northcote, 00:07:36.230 --> 00:07:39.439 Auckland, So he's moved his operation hundreds 00:07:39.439 --> 00:07:42.279 of miles north. Right, up to Auckland. Then around 00:07:42.279 --> 00:07:45.360 1909, he is listed specifically on Queen Street 00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.180 in Northcote, and he drops the Wanganui connection 00:07:48.180 --> 00:07:52.240 entirely, pivoting the brand to WA Price Photocode. 00:07:52.300 --> 00:07:55.139 A cleaner, more localized brand. But he doesn't 00:07:55.139 --> 00:07:58.220 stop. By 1911, he's on the move again, setting 00:07:58.220 --> 00:08:01.600 up shop at 21 Mason's Ave in Ponsonby. Two years 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:04.420 after that, in 1913, the Thames Star places his 00:08:04.420 --> 00:08:06.660 business in Herne Bay. Just jumping from suburb 00:08:06.660 --> 00:08:09.259 to suburb. And then by 1917, the Auckland Star 00:08:09.259 --> 00:08:12.240 has him back in Ponsonby. And finally, from 1920 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:14.980 to 1923, he forms a partnership with a man named 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:17.639 Alfred George Jasper, operating simply as Price 00:08:17.639 --> 00:08:20.430 Photoco. It is a relentless sequence of relocations 00:08:20.430 --> 00:08:22.370 across the Auckland region. No wait, I have to 00:08:22.370 --> 00:08:24.370 push back on this. Moving a photography business 00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:26.990 four or five times in a single decade? Today 00:08:26.990 --> 00:08:28.910 we'd call that a logistical nightmare. It would 00:08:28.910 --> 00:08:31.959 be, absolutely. And back then. We're talking 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:35.480 about hauling heavy wooden field cameras, hundreds 00:08:35.480 --> 00:08:38.940 of fragile glass plate negatives, massive studio 00:08:38.940 --> 00:08:41.580 backdrops, and incredibly volatile chemicals. 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:45.080 Wouldn't the sheer financial and logistical cost 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:48.620 of constant relocation completely negate whatever 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:51.299 extra foot traffic he was gaining? Was he just 00:08:51.299 --> 00:08:53.940 chronically unsettled? Or was this the reality 00:08:53.940 --> 00:08:57.259 of chasing a growing customer base in early 20th 00:08:57.259 --> 00:09:00.200 century New Zealand? I mean, it seems counterintuitive, 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:02.980 right, until you look at the macroeconomics of 00:09:02.980 --> 00:09:05.460 Auckland at that exact time. What was going on 00:09:05.460 --> 00:09:08.139 in Auckland? Auckland in the 1910s is undergoing 00:09:08.139 --> 00:09:10.480 explosive growth. The tram lines are expanding, 00:09:10.840 --> 00:09:13.259 suburbs are rapidly developing, and the commercial 00:09:13.259 --> 00:09:15.259 center of gravity is constantly shifting. He 00:09:15.259 --> 00:09:17.460 isn't just shuffling around aimlessly. Oh, he's 00:09:17.460 --> 00:09:19.639 following the infrastructure. Deliberately tracking 00:09:19.639 --> 00:09:23.200 it. Northcote, Ponsonby, Herne Bay, these were 00:09:23.200 --> 00:09:25.559 rapidly growing residential and commercial hubs. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:27.700 When you are running a volume -based business, 00:09:27.529 --> 00:09:30.129 relying on postcard sales and local portraits, 00:09:30.570 --> 00:09:32.929 your retail footprint is everything. So you can't 00:09:32.929 --> 00:09:34.809 afford to be on a street that was popular five 00:09:34.809 --> 00:09:37.389 years ago. Exactly. You have to be where the 00:09:37.389 --> 00:09:40.519 money is flowing right now. The constant updating 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:44.000 of his imprint shows a man acutely aware of branding 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:46.799 and local presence. So he is treating his photography 00:09:46.799 --> 00:09:49.200 studio the way a modern retail chain treats its 00:09:49.200 --> 00:09:52.019 flagship stores. He is constantly optimizing 00:09:52.019 --> 00:09:55.500 his location based on demographic shifts, swallowing 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:57.779 the cost of moving all that heavy gear because 00:09:57.779 --> 00:10:00.000 the upside of capturing a new neighborhood's 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:02.919 foot traffic is just that lucrative. And we have 00:10:02.919 --> 00:10:05.639 historical proof that this aggressive nomadic 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:08.399 strategy actually worked flawlessly. We do? Yeah. 00:10:08.659 --> 00:10:11.019 The source provides a fantastic piece of evidence 00:10:11.019 --> 00:10:14.860 from November 23rd, 1909. An article in the Greymouth 00:10:14.860 --> 00:10:17.299 Evening Star, which, mind you, is located all 00:10:17.299 --> 00:10:19.220 the way down on the west coast of the South Island, 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:21.899 mentions his company and explicitly describes 00:10:21.899 --> 00:10:24.320 the name as famous. Wow. all the way down in 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:27.259 Greymouth. By 1909, a mere three years after 00:10:27.259 --> 00:10:29.879 the paddle steamer photo, his brand identity 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:32.240 has saturated the market to the point of national 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:35.659 recognition. That word famous printed in a 1909 00:10:35.659 --> 00:10:38.539 newspaper is the ultimate vindication of his 00:10:38.539 --> 00:10:41.500 entire business model. It proves that the WAP 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:43.700 series and all those continuous branding updates 00:10:43.700 --> 00:10:46.590 really did their job. He wasn't just a guy with 00:10:46.590 --> 00:10:49.149 a camera anymore. The Price Photo Co. had become 00:10:49.149 --> 00:10:52.090 a recognized entity. A fully fledged institution. 00:10:52.269 --> 00:10:55.090 And by the late 1920s, that entity finally seemed 00:10:55.090 --> 00:10:58.169 to lay down permanent roots. The timeline settles 00:10:58.169 --> 00:11:00.909 down. He and his business are firmly established 00:11:00.909 --> 00:11:05.039 with a studio located at 300 Ponsonby Road. After 00:11:05.039 --> 00:11:07.740 decades of chasing the tram lines, he has built 00:11:07.740 --> 00:11:10.639 his empire. And here's where it gets really interesting, 00:11:10.740 --> 00:11:13.559 because in 1928, the physical reality of his 00:11:13.559 --> 00:11:16.259 medium violently catches up with him. Ah, yes. 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:19.620 The 1928 fire at the Ponsonby Road studio, this 00:11:19.620 --> 00:11:22.220 is really the crux of the narrative. The source 00:11:22.220 --> 00:11:24.779 cites a newspaper article from The Sun in Auckland 00:11:24.779 --> 00:11:28.379 dated June 16th, 1928. And it details a blaze 00:11:28.379 --> 00:11:30.340 that completely gutted the developing room of 00:11:30.340 --> 00:11:32.240 his studio. And the headline of that article 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:34.679 is absolutely chilling. mother and children escape 00:11:34.679 --> 00:11:37.059 over roofs. Think about the severity of that 00:11:37.059 --> 00:11:38.639 scene. We are not talking about a smoldering 00:11:38.639 --> 00:11:41.539 wastebasket in a back office. No, this was severe. 00:11:41.679 --> 00:11:44.120 We are talking about a roaring out -of -control 00:11:44.120 --> 00:11:48.269 inferno in a dense urban environment. The heat 00:11:48.269 --> 00:11:51.090 and the flames are so intense that a family is 00:11:51.090 --> 00:11:53.730 forced to flee across the literal rooftops of 00:11:53.730 --> 00:11:56.889 Consonbee just to avoid being burned alive. It's 00:11:56.889 --> 00:11:59.330 terrifying. To understand why a developing room 00:11:59.330 --> 00:12:01.370 fire would escalate that quickly, we really have 00:12:01.370 --> 00:12:03.429 to look at the chemistry of the era. Right, because 00:12:03.429 --> 00:12:05.929 the chemical composition of a 1920s darkroom 00:12:05.929 --> 00:12:09.330 was essentially a munitions dump. By this point 00:12:09.330 --> 00:12:11.509 in history, many photographers had transitioned 00:12:11.509 --> 00:12:14.309 from heavy glass plates to flexible film negatives. 00:12:14.389 --> 00:12:16.549 Which were easier to carry, but. But the base 00:12:16.549 --> 00:12:18.940 of that That flexible film was a substance called 00:12:18.940 --> 00:12:21.820 nitrocellulose, and from a chemical standpoint, 00:12:22.259 --> 00:12:24.860 nitrocellulose is virtually identical to gun 00:12:24.860 --> 00:12:27.419 cotton, which is an explosive propellant. That 00:12:27.419 --> 00:12:30.159 is just terrifying stuff. Nitrate film doesn't 00:12:30.159 --> 00:12:33.600 just burn. It combusts with shocking ferocity. 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.779 And the worst part about a nitrate fire is that 00:12:36.779 --> 00:12:39.639 it produces its own oxygen as it burns. You can't 00:12:39.639 --> 00:12:42.039 smother it. Exactly. You cannot just throw a 00:12:42.039 --> 00:12:44.100 heavy blanket over it or spray it with a standard 00:12:44.100 --> 00:12:47.240 extinguisher. Once a stack of nitrate negatives 00:12:47.240 --> 00:12:51.159 catches fire, it can burn underwater. It burns 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:53.340 until there's absolutely nothing left but ash. 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.519 Add in all the highly flammable chemical solvents 00:12:56.519 --> 00:13:00.360 used for developing, and a fire in a 1920s darkroom 00:13:00.360 --> 00:13:03.080 is effectively an explosion that feeds itself. 00:13:03.240 --> 00:13:05.740 So the whole place just goes up. Right. And if 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:09.000 we connect this to the bigger picture, The destruction 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:11.460 of that developing room represents the ultimate 00:13:11.460 --> 00:13:14.639 nightmare for any historian or archivist. Because 00:13:14.639 --> 00:13:16.860 that's where the master copies live. Exactly. 00:13:17.340 --> 00:13:19.340 The original plates, the original negatives, 00:13:19.720 --> 00:13:21.940 the singular, irreplaceable source material for 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.940 his entire famous catalog of New Zealand's visual 00:13:24.940 --> 00:13:27.980 history, were concentrated in a room that just 00:13:27.980 --> 00:13:30.700 turned into a chemical furnace. The archive was 00:13:30.700 --> 00:13:33.340 vaporized. The core of the business was completely 00:13:33.340 --> 00:13:35.639 gutted. And yet, you know, the source notes something 00:13:35.639 --> 00:13:38.080 that feels almost contradictory. It states that 00:13:38.080 --> 00:13:41.000 despite this devastating fire in 1928, the price 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:43.240 photo code name continued to be used for another 00:13:43.240 --> 00:13:45.519 couple of years. The business limped on. The 00:13:45.519 --> 00:13:47.620 business survived the immediate trauma of the 00:13:47.620 --> 00:13:50.419 blaze. Yeah. Yeah. But far more miraculously, 00:13:50.919 --> 00:13:53.659 the images survived. And that's the real puzzle. 00:13:54.039 --> 00:13:56.500 If the master negatives were incinerated on Ponsonby 00:13:56.500 --> 00:13:58.940 Road, how can the records confidently credit 00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:02.240 William Archer Price with thousands of photographs 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:05.259 that we can still see and study today? This goes 00:14:05.259 --> 00:14:07.740 back to the genius of the decentralized analog 00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:10.440 cloud we discussed earlier. His legacy survived 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:13.000 precisely because he did not hoard his art in 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:16.159 a single vulnerable vault. Right. Because he 00:14:16.159 --> 00:14:18.539 spent 20 years mass producing his photographs 00:14:18.539 --> 00:14:21.580 as cheap, accessible postcards, his archive was 00:14:21.580 --> 00:14:24.340 not confined to that burning room. It was scattered 00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:26.639 across hundreds of thousands of living rooms, 00:14:26.879 --> 00:14:29.460 tucked into photo albums in Wangani, pinned to 00:14:29.460 --> 00:14:31.720 notice boards in Northcote, and stored in shoe 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:35.159 boxes in Hearn Bay. So the fire destroyed the 00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:36.919 source, but it was way too late to destroy the 00:14:36.919 --> 00:14:39.179 image. Exactly. The art had already escaped the 00:14:39.179 --> 00:14:41.139 building through the Postal Service. I really 00:14:41.139 --> 00:14:43.340 want you to visualize that. Think about where 00:14:43.340 --> 00:14:46.259 your own memories are stored. The master negative 00:14:46.259 --> 00:14:49.100 of a bustling Auckland street scene melts into 00:14:49.100 --> 00:14:52.980 slag on a rooftop in 1928. But a copy of that 00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:56.000 exact street scene survives completely untouched 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:58.820 because, three years earlier, someone bought 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:00.700 it for a few pennies and mailed it to a friend. 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:04.100 It's amazing. William Archer Price's legacy survived 00:15:04.100 --> 00:15:06.940 an inferno that melted his life's work because 00:15:06.940 --> 00:15:09.620 he had spent decades systematically sending that 00:15:09.620 --> 00:15:12.539 work away. Are your digital memories vulnerable 00:15:12.539 --> 00:15:15.269 to a single fire? or have you shared them widely 00:15:15.269 --> 00:15:17.529 enough to survive? It's a great question. The 00:15:17.529 --> 00:15:19.850 act of commercial distribution became the ultimate 00:15:19.850 --> 00:15:23.009 act of historical preservation for him. He outsourced 00:15:23.009 --> 00:15:25.049 the archiving of his life's work to the general 00:15:25.049 --> 00:15:28.009 public. So we move past the devastation of 1928. 00:15:28.529 --> 00:15:30.590 The famous business name lingers for a few years, 00:15:30.610 --> 00:15:32.929 but eventually the frenetic pace of his career 00:15:32.929 --> 00:15:35.789 winds down. The timeline in our source brings 00:15:35.789 --> 00:15:38.929 us to a very quiet, stark conclusion. His final 00:15:38.929 --> 00:15:41.690 years? Right. We, Marcher Price, passed away 00:15:41.690 --> 00:15:45.710 on January 24, 1948. He was 81 years old, spending 00:15:45.710 --> 00:15:48.210 his final days in Offland, the city he had crisscrossed 00:15:48.210 --> 00:15:51.490 so many times. And the very last detail provided 00:15:51.490 --> 00:15:54.049 by the source is a reference to a simple plaque 00:15:54.049 --> 00:15:56.350 at Puro with Cemetery. A physical marker for 00:15:56.350 --> 00:15:58.529 a man who made millions of physical markers. 00:15:58.690 --> 00:16:01.929 Exactly. It records his death and sits alongside 00:16:01.929 --> 00:16:04.289 the record for Edith Price, who survived him 00:16:04.289 --> 00:16:06.929 by nearly two decades, passing away on August 00:16:06.929 --> 00:16:10.769 23, 1966. It is a profoundly still ending for 00:16:10.769 --> 00:16:13.419 a life defined by constant motion. I mean, from 00:16:13.419 --> 00:16:15.779 the churning water under the Manawai paddle steamer, 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.200 to the relentless hauling of heavy cameras across 00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.799 the developing suburbs of Auckland, to the absolute 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:23.799 chaos of a chemical fire on a rooftop. It all 00:16:23.799 --> 00:16:25.960 distills down to a stationary bronze plaque and 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:28.100 Pirola Cemetery. So what does this all mean? 00:16:28.600 --> 00:16:30.580 We started this deep dive looking at a few bare 00:16:30.580 --> 00:16:32.200 -bones facts, a list of old street addresses, 00:16:32.399 --> 00:16:34.399 a mention of a baker's picnic. But when you look 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:36.620 at the mechanics of his life... William Arthur 00:16:36.620 --> 00:16:39.340 Price is a master class in resilience. He really 00:16:39.340 --> 00:16:41.559 is. He didn't just take pictures. He engineered 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:44.279 an engine of distribution. He realized that the 00:16:44.279 --> 00:16:46.179 best way to make an image immortal wasn't to 00:16:46.179 --> 00:16:48.980 lock it in a safe, but to print it on a postcard. 00:16:49.159 --> 00:16:51.100 and put it in the hands of the public. Yeah, 00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:53.539 let the public do the archiving. The fact that 00:16:53.539 --> 00:16:56.700 a single photo from a 1906 riverboat can survive 00:16:56.700 --> 00:17:00.139 a century of wear and tear, outlast a catastrophic 00:17:00.139 --> 00:17:03.419 nitrate fire, and become a vital piece of a nation's 00:17:03.419 --> 00:17:06.720 history, it proves that the survival of our visual 00:17:06.720 --> 00:17:09.940 legacy is entirely dependent on how widely we 00:17:09.940 --> 00:17:12.460 are willing to share it. This raises an important 00:17:12.460 --> 00:17:14.200 question, and it is the thought I want to leave 00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:17.039 you with today. William Archer Price relied on 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:19.160 the physical weight and the tactile reality of 00:17:19.160 --> 00:17:22.039 the postcard. His archive survived because those 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:24.599 pieces of card stock were physical objects, scattered 00:17:24.599 --> 00:17:27.039 across the physical world, stubbornly resilient 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:28.960 against time and disaster. Right, you can hold 00:17:28.960 --> 00:17:32.339 them. Exactly. But today we operate in the exact 00:17:32.339 --> 00:17:35.140 opposite manner. We capture millions of high 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:38.099 -definition images effortlessly, endlessly, and 00:17:38.099 --> 00:17:41.309 almost entirely digitally. We carry the illusion 00:17:41.309 --> 00:17:43.170 that our memories are immortal because they live 00:17:43.170 --> 00:17:45.910 in a centralized, invisible cloud. Which isn't 00:17:45.910 --> 00:17:47.910 a cloud at all, it's just someone else's server. 00:17:48.170 --> 00:17:51.890 Right. So in our era of instantaneous, intangible 00:17:51.890 --> 00:17:54.670 data, where an entire lifetime of photos can 00:17:54.670 --> 00:17:57.069 be wiped out by a corrupted hard drive or a forgotten 00:17:57.069 --> 00:17:59.750 password, will any of our digital images actually 00:17:59.750 --> 00:18:03.349 be easily accessible, deeply valued, and historically 00:18:03.349 --> 00:18:06.950 preserved a hundred years from now? Or is our 00:18:06.950 --> 00:18:10.170 modern, frictionless way of capturing life actually 00:18:10.170 --> 00:18:12.710 infinitely more fragile than a piece of cardboard 00:18:12.710 --> 00:18:15.549 mailed in 1906? It is definitely something to 00:18:15.549 --> 00:18:16.950 think about the next time you tap that shutter 00:18:16.950 --> 00:18:18.829 button and assume the will keep it safe forever. 00:18:19.569 --> 00:18:21.230 Thank you so much for joining us on this deep 00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:23.970 dive into the relentless resilient life of William 00:18:23.970 --> 00:18:25.950 Archer Price. We will catch you next time.