Killing 2 Birds with 1 Stone: How a Presidential Son's Snub Led to an Iconic Image

Not a Knoxville related blog, but an interesting story about one of the most famous photographs of the horse drawn steam fire engine era.

Delmar Gerle Roos, better known as "Barney" to his friends (Roos idolized Barney Oldfield, America's pioneer race car driver who became the first man to reach 60 mph on a circular track), was an accomplished early twentieth century automobile engineer who served as Studebaker's head of engineering specializing in its straight-eight engines. He left South Bend, Indiana and Studebaker for England in the mid-1930s where he worked for the British Rootes Group and was responsible for the designs of the Humber, Hillman, and Sunbeam Talbot cars. Sensing the looming threat from Nazi Germany after attending a speech by Adolf Hitler, he left Europe and returned to the United States where he co-designed the Willys Go Devil engine that powered all the Jeep vehicles built for the United States and its Allies during World War II, as well as postwar civilian Jeep vehicles. Roos's life was an accomplished one, and when a reporter from Automotive Industries magazine tasked with gathering information about the man who had been recently elected President of the Society of Automotive Engineers asked, "What, among the many things you have done, are you proudest of?" the engineer's response came as a surprise. The interviewer had expected to hear Roos explain some sort of engineering feat; however, the engineer's eyes twinkled and he answered, "I once made a famous news picture." The reporter's pen flew over his notebook as he scribbled away while Roos related one of the great stories of early news photography.

Delmar "Barney" Roos

In the summer of 1910, Roos, who was attending Cornell University where he was studying to become a mechanical engineer, obtained a seasonal job as a news photographer. He had an interest in photography and owned a 5x7 Kodak Portrait Graflex camera. Roos was hired by Arthur Brown of Brown Brothers, New York, an independent news photo service that provided photos for newspapers since very few had photographic departments at that time. As one of his first assignments, Roos was dispatched to New Haven, Connecticut in late June to take pictures of the Yale commencement ceremonies. Arthur Brown instructed Roos that there was one photograph that he had to get--a photograph of graduate Robert A. Taft, the son of President William Howard Taft, in cap and gown with his diploma in hand.



Yale University 1910 Commencement (Yale University)

Roos began to make his first series of photographs. However, when he came to Taft, the president's son refused to pose. Roos made the rest of his photos until he had exposed twenty-three of the twenty-four plates he had with him. He tried Taft once again but received a firm "no." Having failed to obtain the photo his boss desired, Roos walked across the street to catch a trolley car back to the train depot. As he waited on the corner he heard some commotion down the street from the Yale commencement; however, a row of building blocked his view. With the large camera still in his hands, Roos took a few steps off of the corner and into the street when he saw the source of the commotion coming into view. He soon found himself in the direct path of three Percheron draft horses that were bearing down on him at a furious pace. The team of horses was pulling the New Haven Fire Department's steam fire engine, smoke billowing from its boiler. The driver, with a firm grip on the reins, began to make a sharp turn up the street and Roos could see the steamer's engineer steady himself from his position in the rear of the horse-drawn apparatus. Roos readied his camera, looked down into his viewer, and pressed the shutter release to record the moment for posterity.



An unidentified man takes a photo with a 5x7 Home Portrait Graflex camera 

From across the street, Robert Taft had witnessed the entire scene. Greatly impressed, Taft came over to Roos and now consented to have his picture made. However, Roos had just exposed his last plate on the three-horse-drawn fire steam engine.



A catalogue featuring the Kodak Home Portrait Graflex camera with various accessories and prices. (ca. 1914)
 

As Roos boarded his train for New York City, he feared that he would be fired by Brown for failing to get the photograph that his boss wanted most. But as he examined his photograph of the horse drawn fire steam engine, he was astonished to see two things. First, the image was clear, far clearer than he could have imagined as the steam fire engine's driver had made the turn and the team of horses had continued to gallop at breakneck speed. Second, standing in the background of the photograph, among the spectators watching the New Haven Fire Department in action, was the man who had just moments earlier refused to be photographed--Robert Taft. He was partially hidden by another spectator; however, there he stood in cap and gown, clutching his diploma.

Ross's image of the New Haven (CT) Fire Department's horse drawn steam fire engine with Yale Graduate 
Robert Taft (fourth from left) partially hidden by a gentleman taking a step off the corner into the street.

Senator Robert A. Taft

After his graduation from Yale, Taft pursued a law degree at Harvard, graduating in 1913. He then moved to Cincinnati where he began practicing law. But he soon abandoned his law practice for politics where he followed in his father's footsteps. He quickly rose up the Republican ranks in Ohio politics to serve as one of its Senators in the U.S. Congress. In the Senate, Taft aligned with Conservative Democrats to prevent the further expansion of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and was that institution's most prominent non-interventionist who stood opposed to U.S. involvement in World War II. His political aspirations for higher office were frustrated with three unsuccessful bids for his party's presidential nomination.

As for Roos, he never went back into the news photography service after he completed his work for Brown Brothers that summer. But the great steam fire engine picture he made was sold to many newspapers throughout the United States and has since become one of the most famous photographs of the bygone era of the horse-drawn steam fire engines.