The Jordan Marsh Company Rifle Club Preparadness Parade, May 27 1916

Panoramic photographs are a challenge to tame to Web presentation. The glory is in the details, but one can only appreciate those details by minute inspection. I have scanned the 3-foot image in pieces, and offer some of the meatier bits.

At the center of the image we see the identifying banner:

Standing slightly ahead of all the others is this worthy gentleman, clearly the Commanding Officer of the Rifle Club, whom I imagine to be a Head Floorwalker at Jordan Marsh:

The spelling of the identifying label ("Preparadness") bespeaks a certain idiosyncracy, mirrored in the minute variations of uniform details: the wrapping of puttees, the fit and angle of campaign hats, the angles of feet:

There are many endearing details. Note the short person placed in the back row, behind two soup-strainer moustaches, who had the misfortune to forget his boots on the day of the picture, so he and his pointy-toed patent leather shoes are exiled, and he has to stand on tiptoes to be seen:

The picture was taken somewhere in the Back Bay area of Boston, a tony residential area in 1916. A uniformed maid watches the proceedings from a window:

One more bit of the quotidian is the lad on the delivery truck behind the uniformed gentlemen:

There are 113 members of the Rifle Club present and accounted for, and it's likely that more than a few were from Nova Scotia, where I paid $2 for this gem in 1974.