When We Stood Up For Our Country
The photographs are genuine and were created by Arthur Mole and John Thomas during the early years of the 20th Century. Mole and Thomas created a whole series of human formation pictures representing important religious and military related symbols, including the Liberty Bell, complete with crack, the Statue of Liberty, the American Eagle, a "portrait" of President Wilson, the US Shield, and a number of others. These living representations of revered symbols of American patriotism were used to promote support of America's involvement in the 1st World War.
Human Liberty Bell
18,000 men formed the Liberty Bell at Fort Dix in 1910
Human Status Of Liberty
Camp Dodge in Iowa 1910
The design for the living picture was laid out at the drill ground at CampDodge, situated in the beautiful valley of the Des Moines River. Thousandsof yards of white tape were fastened to the ground and formed the outlineson which 18,000 officers and men marched to their respective positions.
In this body of soldiers are any hundreds of men of foreign birth — bornof parents whose first impression of the Land of Freedom and Promise wasof the world's greatest colossus standing with beacon light at the portalof a nation of free people, holding aloft a torch symbolic of the light ofliberty which the statue represents. Side by side with native sons thesemen, with unstinted patriotism, now offer to sacrifice not only theirliberty but even life itself for our beloved country.
The day on which the photograph was taken was extremely hot and the heatwas intensified by the mass formation of men. The dimensions of theplatting for the picture seem astonishing. The camera was placed on a hightower. From the position nearest the camera occupied by Colonel Newman andhis staff, to the last man at the top of the torch as platted on theground was 1,235 feet, or approximately a quarter of a mile. The appendedfigures will give an adequate idea of the distorted proportions of theactual ground measurements for this photograph:
Base to shoulder: 150 feet.
Right arm: 340 feet.
Widest part of arm holding torch: 12-1/2 feet.
Right thumb: 35 feet.
Thickest part of body: 29 feet.
Left hand (length): 30 feet.
Tablet in left hand: 27 feet.
Face: 60 feet.
Nose: 21 feet.
Longest spike of head piece: 70 feet.
Flame on torch.: 600 feet.
Torch and flame combined: 980 feet.
Number of men in flame of torch: 12,000
Number of men in torch: 2,800
Number of men in right arm: 1,200
Number of men in body, head and balance of figure only: 2,000
Total: 18,000
Incredible as it may seem there are twice the number of men in the flameof the torch as in the whole remaining design, while there are eight timesas many men in the arm, torch and flame as in all the rest of the figure.It will be noted that the right thumb is five feet longer than the lefthand, while the right arm, torch and flame is eight times the length ofthe body.