# J. Edgar Hoover, Sumner Blossom and Courtney Ryley Cooper aiming guns (11 December 1935, 65-H-125-3)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/nara-505632202-hoover-blossom-cooper-aiming-guns-1935-b/

An FBI photograph of 11 December 1935 with the original caption naming, left to right, Director J. Edgar Hoover, Sumner Blossom, editor of The American Magazine, and the author Courtney Ryley Cooper, each aiming a gun.

The National Archives catalog title is "Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, Mr. Sumner Blossom, and Mr. Courtney Ryley Cooper, Aiming Guns," local identifier 65-H-125-3, dated 11 December 1935. The original caption reads: "Reading from left to right: Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U. S. Department of Justice; Mr. Sumner Blossom, Editor, The American Magazine; Mr. Courtney Ryley Cooper, Author."

This frame shows the three men against a brick wall, each aiming a handgun toward the camera; the man at the left holds his with both hands. The catalog does not identify the weapons, and this page does not. A second frame of the same session is filed separately.

The catalog gives no place and no occasion. The identifications are the caption's. The picture is a posed publicity photograph of the Bureau's director with a magazine editor and an author; it does not record an arrest or a case.

## Sources

- National Archives Catalog, Records of the FBI (RG 65), Photographs Accumulated by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/505632202
- National Archives series: Photographs Accumulated by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (NAID 518177): https://catalog.archives.gov/id/518177