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Historic original vintage matte-finish 9.75 x 12 'living photograph' of the Statue of Liberty by Arthur Mole & John Thomas, captioned in the lower right corner: "The Human Liberty Bell, 25,000 Officers & Men at Camp Dix, New Jersey." The "Mole & Thomas" copyright notice is in the lower left corner. Matted and framed to an overall size of 17.5 x 20. In very good condition, with several creases and associated surface tears.
According to the website The Public Domain Review: 'In search of some eye-catching imagery to boost morale surrounding US involvement in WWI, the US military commissioned the English-born photographer Arthur Mole and his assistant John Thomas to make a series of extraordinary group portraits. Between 1915 and 1921, with the dutiful help of thousands of servicemen and staff from various US military camps, the duo produced around thirty of the highly patriotic images, which Mole labeled 'living photographs.'
As one might imagine, the creation of each photograph was somewhat of a military exercise in itself, taking a week or more to prepare. Firstly, the desired image would be traced with wire onto a glass plate mounted to Mole's camera, which he would then take to the top of an 80 foot high viewing tower. Looking through the template, armed with a megaphone and large pointing stick, Mole would then oversee the laborious nailing down of miles and miles of lace edging, tracing out the pattern. The next stage was fairly straight forward, the servicemen would then simply need to fill the design.'
