When all else fails, dazzle 'em with science

In my previous post, I introduced the McClurken boys and some of you commented that you thought the tallest of these skinny young men was on the far left. So I decided to take a closer look. A much closer look.

I recalled from an now ancient mechanical drawing class I suffered through, something about "vanishing points". To refresh my memory, I asked my good friend Google about it. He told me, "a vanishing point is a point in a perspective drawing to which parallel lines not parallel to the image plane appear to converge." Engineering drawings usually show an item in three flat, 90-degree views (top, side, and front) but there is another type of engineering drawing, called the orthogonal or one point perspective.

Noticing that the old photograph had a "vanishing point off to the far right, it was obvious to me that the left most objects appear bigger than they actually are - that is, as compared with objects to the right... (My apologies to my g-uncle McClurken for calling his lower leg an object).


So, I printed out a copy of the photo and determined just where the vanishing point was located. You see it there, way off to the far right. So what this means, is that the traverse lines at any distance from the vanishing point are of the same length (or in this case, height).


Looking more closely at the photo, we see the orthogonal lines passing through the top of the fence behind the young men as well as beneath them along the curbing of the flower garden (I admit, I "assumed" that the curb was parallel to the fence).


Interesting - the two young men on the left, appear to be of nearly identical height, although the one in the middle has a "longer" face. Going by a rough estimate based on the height of a typical forehead - the man on the left is about 3 inches shorter than the other two - which, as they say, "agrees well with the data" given we think one man was 5'7" and the other two were about 5'10".

So what does all this prove?

Well, absolutely nothing other than demonstrating the author of this post will go to great lengths to attempt to solve a perplexing problem (if he wants to).

Looking at the photo, I'm not even convinced myself.

What helped some was to locate the Selective Service Act of 1917 and learn that all males aged 21 to 30 were required to register for military service. At the request of the War Department, Congress amended the law in August 1918 to expand the age range to include all men 18 to 45.

This means originally, young men born between 1886 and 1896 were required to register (and hence drafted). Knowing this gives me greater confidence that the older and younger brothers where not drafted. It still leaves me with the possibility of four of the seven brothers being in the photo with Howard being left questionable as he was "just barely younger" than draft age.

So - does this mean James, Edwin, and George are in the photo (and not Howard)? I guess it will require further research to be sure - and finding WWI records that I have no known access to...