The living photos of Arthur Mole

In the photograph above, 21,000 soldiers stationed at Camp Sherman in Chillicothe, Ohio, were positioned in 1918 to form a portrait of American president Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), who was in office during World War I. The men were painstakingly placed to achieve the likeness from the point of view of the 80' tower from which the shot was captured. "The image is characteristic of Mole's work in that it wavers between the compositional effect of the whole (i.e. a portrait of Woodrow Wilson) and the desire to focus upon the obscured individuals who constitute the image, thereby undermining the optical illusion of the totality to a degree," reads Oddee. The so-called novelty photo has become the lasting legacy of British photographer Arthur S. Mole (1889-1983) and his associate John D. Thomas, and they are considered pioneers in the field of performed group photography. The Illinois-based pair made a series of such photos across the country, each made up of thousands of choreographed bodies:

• Statue of Liberty, 1918 (18,000 soldiers at Camp Dodge, Des Moines, Iowa)
• Uncle Sam, 1918 (21,000 troops at Camp Lee in Richmond, Virginia)
• U.S. Shield, 1918 (30,000 officers and men at Camp Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan) 
• American Eagle, 1918 (12,500 officers, nurses, and men at Camp Gordon in Atlanta, Georgia)
• Liberty Bell, 1918 (25,000 soldiers at Camp Dix, New Jersey)
• Living Emblem of the United States Marines, 1919 (100 officers and 9000 enlisted men at the Marine Barracks at Parris Island, South Carolina)

To carry out these photo shoots required a week of preparation and hours of positioning. John F. Ptak points out, "[It] takes a little bit of planning to accomplish to ensure that everything is kept in perspective, and which also means that a lot more folks are needed at the top of the constructed image than at the bottom." He points out that if you look at Uncle Sam's beard, you will see the soldiers lying down. Nothing intentional in Lady Liberty, though many of the participating men were said to have fainted in the 105°F July heat!

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Previous presidential posts:

Jefferson's juice?

Model looks

Robert Todd Lincoln

Willie Lincoln

The play that night

Last to see Lincoln

The chair and the car

The sarcophagus Andrew Jackson declined

Theodore Roosevelt, naturalist

Obama likeness

Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday

Election Day!