[General Pershing and unidentified group on steps]

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General John J. Pershing stands with an unidentified group on a flight of steps in this 1923 view, a year when he was serving as Army Chief of Staff in Washington. The picture is a glass negative from the National Photo Company, a Washington firm that documented official life, public events and visiting dignitaries in the early decades of the twentieth century. Because library staff devised the title, the other people on the steps remain unnamed, so the occasion behind the photograph is unclear. Streaks and blemishes on the glass reflect natural deterioration of the original coating, a common condition for negatives of this age.

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