Evening star., 1942-03-08
Woman Presides as Custodian
Of Signal Corps Photographs
Mrs. Alice Kuhn
Describes Vast
Collection Here
BY JESSIE FAINT EVANS,

No matter what the photograph Is
of the American war scene, since the
time Of the Civil War, II 1t Is in the
files of the United States Signal
Corps, an unassuming, blue eyed
woman can put her finger on It,.
She is Mrs. Alice Roberts Kuhn,
picture custodian of the photo
graphic records of the Signal Corps
q Under her custodianship, in the
we'll ordered Office over which she
presides, are over 10000 photo
graphs. Their range is a kaleido-
scopic, panoramic one. from Civil
War times down to the immediate
present, with the official picturiza-
ton of the damage done at Hickam
Field, Hawaii, when the Japs
bombed it on December Z. These
Signal Corps photographs constitute
pictorial treasure house Of in
calculable value to historians Of the
present and future.
Important historical items in this
collection are the negatives made
from the original glass plates Of the
famous Brady photographs of the
Civil War era. The irreplaceable
originals, purchased by act of Con-
greSs in 1875, are now in the custody
of the Archives Building, but faith
full reproductions are available from
these negatives.
First Actual War Scenes.
OF the Brady photographs. Mrs.
Kuhn said: Despite the fact that
they are the first in Photographic
history to be made at or near the
scene of actual military engage
ments, they are still outstanding in
the clearness of their detail and OF
their scenic backgrounds"
This is all the more remarkable"
she explained, because they had to
be taken on wet plates, which In
every instance it was necessary to
develop Immediately afterward, re-
gardless of the absence of the usual
facilitis We find requisite today"
Then, subsequently, we learned
these fragile glass negatives, with
only the crude protection from
breakage, were jolted away in
Brady's little old horse-drawn
buggy over the rutty. unpaved roads
of those days to a place of compare
tive safety. So aware was this first
wartime photographer of the fu-
ture Importance of the pictorial task
he had assumed. that he paid his
own expenses to get the photo
graphs.
Mrs. Kuhn pointed out that
Brady's photographs of Lincoln,
Grant, Seward and many other Civil
War leaders are great character
studies in addition to being faithful
portraits.
First Action Pictures.
One of the special treasures in the
Brady collection, from historical
standpoint in Photographic evolu-
ton is his record of the first known
attempt to take an action picture.
1t is a blurred picture Of a Civil
War battery in action near Fred
ericksburg, Va. Brady himself called
it Battery in Action"
Two of the famous Brady photo
graphs In the collection draw
sharp contrast between the Wash
ington of Civil War times and OF
World War II. In one. cattle are
placidly grazing on the Monument
grounds. Another shows the Tiber
Creek running parallel with Penn
svlvania avenue. The unfinished
Capitol Building looks down upon
the scene. Another shows a team
of oxen pulling a gun, presumably
from the Navy Yard.
Mrs. Kuhn's favorites in the entire
collection after the Brady items are
the photographs OF the early flights
of the Wright brothers, in and near
Washington. This may be, she ad-
mitted, because as little girl she
remembers her mother taking her
out to Fort Myer to witness several
of these historic take-offs. The in
ventor aviator brothers wore straw
hats and their suits differed In no
way from that of the masculine
spectators who lined the field.
One of the photographs in the
early aviation assortment shows the
then almost incredible feat of Claude
Grahame- White, who took Cff from
Executive avenue between the White
House and what was then the State,
War and Navy Building, now the
State Department. The plane
reached Benning before it landed.
Contrasts Are Evident.
OF current interest because OF the
motion picture showing of Clusters
Last Stand" is a June Is, 1875, photo
graph of this famous Indian fighter
with his beautiful wife and COM
pany of friends at Western
rendezvous. He Is In his familiar
fringed buckskin coat and broad
plainsmen's hat. She is even more
beautiful than in the movie version.
Very marked is the tremendous
contrast between the rather ANA
teurish Photographic efforts OF
various individual officers and men
during the Spanish-American War.
for instance, and the professional
technique of the Signal Corps which
recorded the Pearl Harbor disaster.
American ingenuity and initiative
in this previous combat are dra-
matically shown in the successful
floating of an artillery gun across
a Philippine river on mat-type OF
barge-and the mounting of rifles
in such a way on little narrow
gauge railway that they actually
constituted a deadly armored car.
The Photographic record of World
War l is a very complete one, in
dexed and arranged by divisions,
so that a veteran desiring a pic
torial record of any division in
which he fought may be almost