J. Edgar Hoover, Sumner Blossom and Courtney Ryley Cooper aiming guns (11 December 1935, 65-H-125-3)
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.
- Date
- 1935-12-11
- Kind
- photograph
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- NAID
- 505632202
- Rights
- A photograph in the Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Record Group 65), series "Photographs Accumulated by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover" (NAID 518177). The item reads "Use Restriction: Unrestricted." The series note says: "Some photos were taken by commercial and private photographers and may be copyrighted." No photographer is credited on this item; this archive relies on the item-level "Unrestricted" and treats it as a Bureau photograph, a United States government work, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The stored copy is an 1,800-pixel downsample of the catalog's scan.
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.
