Historical Portrait

Veterans of the civil war, members of the Grand Army of the Republic, who will participate in the Constitution day celebration program at Chicago Stadium on the night of Sept. 17, are (left to right)

1936·Source: loc·View original ↗·Public Domain

Free to use. Public domain. No account needed.

Archive record

1 photograph : gelatin silver print ; sheet 21 x 26 cm (8 x 10 format) | Photograph shows Union veterans who participated in the Constitution Day program at Chicago Stadium, Chicago, Illinois, gathered around a cannon.

About this photograph

The archive record places this photograph on 17 September 1936, when these Union veterans gathered at Chicago Stadium for a Constitution Day program. All of them were members of the Grand Army of the Republic, the fraternal organisation of Union soldiers founded in 1866.

By 1936 the youngest Civil War veterans were in their late eighties or early nineties. The Grand Army of the Republic, which had once been a substantial political force campaigning for pensions and running memorial observances, was approaching its end. It would dissolve in 1956 when its last member died.

The men are posed around a cannon. The photograph shows them seventy years after the war's conclusion, long past the age when most had worn uniform in the field. Their gathering for a public program was typical of the organisation, which had maintained local posts running reunions and memorial events for decades.

The record does not name the individual veterans or specify how many took part in the Constitution Day celebration that evening. It identifies them only by their shared membership and their role in the stadium program.

Compiled from the catalogue record and reference notes on the formats and events involved. The archive record above is the primary source.

About the format

Gelatin Silver Prints

Rights & Attribution

Credit: Library of Congress

Reuse: Public domain. Free to download, print, edit and republish, commercially or otherwise. How rights work in this archive.

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From the 1930s collection Gelatin Silver Prints Civil War