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Taking the air in Washington, D.C., in 1920. "McDevitt, wife and baby." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
This is Joe Manning again. I found the family by looking in the 1920 census for Washington, DC. The only McDevitts listed with a baby approximately one year old was the one I named. In this case, it was easy. Of course, I could be wrong, since the census taker could have overlooked another McDevitt family with a similar situation. But I'm pretty sure I got the right one.
[There's also the possibility that they're not from Washington. - Dave]
Hi there,
How'd you find that information out? I was curious to find out what neighborhood the photo was taken in, but didn't see any clues. Do you have other info about the photo that you started from to figure out their identities?
Thanks!
[National Photo supplied photographs to newspapers, so these people would have to be newsworthy in some way. There are three or four other images of Dad with the baby, two of them in an expensive-looking lily pond. The most prominent McDevitt in the news at the time was John Jay "Butch" McDevitt, a huckster-humorist from Wilkes-Barre who made his name in 1912 as "millionaire for a day" in New York and Washington and thereafter as a perennially losing joke-candidate for various political offices. Which would take forever to explain but you can Google it. Anyway this is not that McDevitt. - Dave]
This is Joe Manning. According to the 1920 census, this family is most likely Thomas McDevitt (or MacDevitt), wife Genevieve, and son Thomas, Jr.
was not bad. In fact, most of America was very good - better than anywhere else at the time.
Foy
Las Vegas, Nevada
We see so many images of deprivation and inequality. Not all of America was bad.
It takes a real man to pilot something like that. What a sweet picture.
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