My Favourite Photograph

[braex27]

Just wanted to share this photograph with you all. It's a Pultizer Prize ( 1957-1958 ) winner, and probably quite familiar to most of you. As it includes a small child, I thought it best to just post the link gettyimages:

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/53368658/Time-Life-Pictures

It's the picture of Maurice Cullinane, a police officer, patiently speaking to a two-year old Allen Weaver who had stepped of the curb during a parade.

What I love about the picture is the perfection of the moment. There is great patience and kindness in the officer's face as he explains the dangers to the child. And there is absolute innocence in the child, who listens attentively. Brilliant. Brilliant.

 

[upyrkilt469]

Thanks for posting. The picture was fantastic and I had never seen it before.

 

[NedNickerson]

Back then, policemen were respected, and the little boy is obviously awed by the policeman.

Policmen and firemen are the warriors who strive to do their job and keep the rest of us safe. Many parents and teachers have failed when it comes to teaching children to respect authority.

 

[NedNickerson]

That photo appeared in the October 14, 1957 issue of LIFE magazine. So what's happened to the two since?

I found this article on PEOPLE's website:

January 13, 1975 Vol. 3 No. 1
A Famous Cop Takes Over in Washington

In 1957, although they did not know it at the moment, a 25-year-old Washington cop and a 2-year-old toddler were about to become famous. During a Chinese festival, officer Maurice Cullinane stooped down to coax tiny Allen Weaver back onto the curb to avoid the sputtering fireworks. The picture, widely reprinted, earned photographer Bill Beall a Pulitzer Prize.

Last month, Cullinane's attention to the little details of police work paid off again. Known as "Wonder Boy" for his rapid rise within the department, the 20-year veteran was named the city's chief of police. It was a popular appointment. Despite local pressures for a black chief—70 percent of the city's residents and more than one third of its police force are black—"Cully" was the easy favorite in a recent rank-and-file vote to replace retiring chief Jerry Wilson. Although the vote was not binding on Mayor Walter Washington, it was a measure of confidence that Cullinane welcomed. (As for little Allen, he is now 19, and his family has moved to California.)

Cully is a third-generation Irish cop. "I've never wanted to be anything else," he says. "It's a family tradition." His father walked a Washington beat for 34 years, and his grandfather and several granduncles also wore the shield. Long a believer in the value of the foot patrolman, Cullinane's first act as chief was to order his legion of motorscooter cops to start hoofing it half the time. "People in the community," says Cully, "don't feel the police understand their problems if they're driving around all the time."

=================================

I also found out that he's now retired and living in the Washington D.C. aread.

I also found this article:

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/07/29/Floridian/Healthline.shtml

Maurice Cullinane of Maryland was cruising for a good fishing spot near the tip of Anna Maria Island with two friends. The boat hit a wave, and the anchor flipped and lodged in the back of Cullinane's skull. The anchor was removed after seven hours of surgery at Bayfront Medical Center, according to St. Petersburg Times files.

Ouch!

==================================

Police Transcript from the Night Lincoln was Shot
WASHINGTON, DC - DC Metropolitan Police kept meticulous notes about the details about what it was like for police at the scene of President Abraham Lincoln's murder on April 14th 1865.

An unknown police officer wrote a detailed description of the assassination in a log book. FOX 5's Paul Wagner reported on this back in January of 2008.
At that time parts of the not were hard to decipher. But not the complete transcript has been released. Former Police Chief Maurice Cullinane donated the log book to the DC Police Museum.

The transcript can be found here:
http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/dpp/news/021209_Police_Transcript_Night_Lincoln_was_Shot2149365

=======================================

There's LOTS that can be found online about Maurice Cullinane. Being chief of police, he's frequently mentioned in news articles.

 

[Fire]

What a ruinous watermark.

 

[NedNickerson]

http://mpdc.dc.gov/mpdc/cwp/view.asp?a=1230&q=563251&mpdcNav=|

 

[boxerdudeuk]

Back then, policemen were respected, and the little boy is obviously awed by the policeman.

Policmen and firemen are the warriors who strive to do their job and keep the rest of us safe. Many parents and teachers have failed when it comes to teaching children to respect authority.

can't disagree with ya there

 

[BRIOHAZARD]

That picture is adorable! Thank you very much for sharing! ^_^

Back then, policemen were respected, and the little boy is obviously awed by the policeman.

Policmen and firemen are the warriors who strive to do their job and keep the rest of us safe. Many parents and teachers have failed when it comes to teaching children to respect authority.

I concur.


But I will not respect a power-hungry pig.

 

[NedNickerson]

I tried to zoom in on their faces so we could see their expressions a bit better.

This is the best I could do. Any more than this, and the pixels began to get out of focus.

 

[BINOWGAYLATER]

wow - thanks BRAEX - that is way cool -- (hate to admit) I've never seen it - at least have no memery of it)
and NED - you continue to amaze !! thanks ..

The photo is indeed spectacular - that the photog captured that moment so well - - i'm sooo jealous .

 

[Darkflower]

Great thread!

I know that picture well, and vaguely recall reading an update story about it or seeing something. I believe they were reunited for some news magazine program within the last ten years. The little two year old (50 or so at the time of the broadcast I think I saw) didn't remember Cullinane or the incident at all, but both were still happy to meet, and tickled to be subjects of such a memorable photograph.

And the police log from the night of Lincoln's assasination--a treasure! I'd never seen it before, and I consider myself a lay-nerd in history. The Civil War is one of the areas of my deepest interest. Ned, you RAWK!

 

[NedNickerson]

Here's a HUGE copy of the photo that you can download:

"Watch out for firecrackers, son."
https://www.yousendit.com/download/Z01QZXQwdGpvQnRjR0E9PQ

=========================================

Here's some more news articles about Maurice Cullinane and Allen Weaver:

Cullinane: "Sometimes I hate that picture..."
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ccfgpw/photo303.htm

==========================================

I found this article online at the website for The Free-Lance Star newspaper in Fredericksburg, VA dated August 30, 1975. The article was on microfilm, so I copied what it said:

The photo was reprinted with the caption:

The Instant It Happened

FIRST OFFENSE

After 23 years of teasing pictures out of everyday events, this was just another parade to Bill Beall of the Washington Daily News. But the editor had a fondness for the Chinese and the Chinese had a fondness for parades.

So when the Hip Sing Chinese Merchants' Association dedicated a new building in Washington's tiny Chinatown, they held a parade. And Beall drew the photo assignment. It was a hot, sultry tenth of September, 1957, and Beall at 204 pounds and 36 years had one main thought: get the picture and get back. He stood there clicking away at the great paper dragon as it went by, steeling himself against the rattle of firecrackers. Out of the corner of his eye...

Beall sees the little boy step from the curb, intrigued by the floating paper dragon with people legs. But policeman bends down like some vastly older brother, and says in essence, "The firecrackers will get you if you don't watch out." Bealls whirls and snaps the picture.

Whatever else was said was lost in a fresh barrage of firecrackers and the fickleness of memory. All that is left is the picture. Back in the newsroom, Beall developed the film, confirmed what his eyes saw through the camera sight. He told the editor, "I think I have a real one."

The picture won prize after prize. The boy, Allen Weaver, grew up. The cop, Maurice Cullinane, became assistant chief of police. Some years after the parade, the newspaper brought cop and boy together again. But the same gentle electricity was not there; the magic of an instant was gone.

===========================================

This is from LIFE's website:

15 Years Later

 

[NedNickerson]

I found out a little info about the photographer, Bill Beall.

He was at Iwo Jima the day the flag was raised and missed taking the famous photo we've all seen, because he was on the other side of the island.

http://www.hagginmuseum.org/exhibitions/pulitzer/photos.htm

The Pulitzer catalogue notes that William C. Beall, like Joe Rosenthal, was a combat photographer during World War II. Yet it was years later that he won the Pulitzer Prize for a photograph entirely different from the one of the flag raised on Iwo Jima.

While working for the Washington Daily News, William Beall was assigned to cover the Chinese Merchants Association parade on September 10, 1957. It hardly seemed like the kind of event that would produce the most-applauded photograph ever to appear in the Washington Daily News.

While keeping his eye on the parade, Beall saw a small boy step into the street, attracted by a dancing Chinese lion. A tall young policeman stepped in front of the boy, cautioning him to step back from the busy street.

According to Beall, “I suddenly saw the picture, turned and clicked.” The result was a moment of childhood innocence frozen in time.

Notes from Denny Beall:

One bit of info was that Bill Beall was on Iwo Jima at the time the famous flag raising photo was taken and was in the same marine photography outfit as Joe Rosenthal, he just happened to go to the other side of the island that day.

One thing often missed was that the young spit & polish policeman went on to become the Chief of Police of Washington DC, Maurice Cullinane.

There is also a statue in front of a courthouse, in Jonesboro, Georgia, honoring policeman that is taken from the photo.

===================================

I've been looking for a photo of the "policeman statue" but haven't had any luck.

===================================

Here's a news article about a criminal defense lawyer who wanted to have the statue removed because it portrayed policemen in a positive light and he thought it would bias jurors:

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/puBre.htm

 

[honooryuu]

thats really cool. i loved it.