File talk:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Germany.jpg

Confusion over similar images

For quite some time, this image was identified here on Commons, on the English Wikipedia, and on other Wikipedias as a photo of Roosevelt signing the declaration of war on Japan. In the discussion reproduced below that took place at en:Talk:Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wikipedia editors established that in fact the image was of the signing of the declaration of war on Germany:

Can both images of declaration of war signing in this article be correct? There are two images (one moving) in this article purported to be of FDR signing the declaration of war against Japan. To be specific: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:FDRoosevelt.gif http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Franklin_Roosevelt_signing_declaration_of_war_against_Japan_December_1941.jpg However, in one of them he is wearing a light suit, has a small flag in front of him, and is flanked by onlookers. In the other, he is wearing a dark suit, there is no small flag before him, and he there are no onlookers close by. I think it reasonable to surmise that only one of these pictures is actually of the signing of the declaration of war against Japan (unless FDR was able to do extremely fast wardrobe changes). I was unfortunately unable to locate a picture of the declaration signing on the Roosevelt Presidential Library web site. My guess, yet to be verified, would be that the "light-suit" picture is probably incorrect, assuming that it would be less likely for the President to wear a light suit at the onset of winter and on such a somber occasion as a declaration of war. My apologies if this issue has been brought up before.Mnentro 01:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC) The source of the dark suit one is here and it seems by the context of that newsreel that he is signing the declaration of war against Germany when he is in the dark suit. The light suit one is correct, it is the declaration of war against Japan. Gdo01 01:10, 14 April 2007 (UTC) On second thought, I think that is Roosevelt signing one of the various acts that were used to help Britain before 1941. Gdo01 01:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC) I found it: It's Roosevelt signing the Lend-Lease act. Look at the picture in that article. Gdo01 01:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC) Here we go at last . . . perhaps. The image on the page below from the FDR presidential library purports to be a photo of FDR signing the declaration of war against Japan. This image, I believe, is different from BOTH of the images in the Wikipedia article. Note the black armband that FDR is wearing and the solemn expression on his face. I would hazard to say that this is "the real deal," not the images currently used in Wikipedia. The URL in question is below: http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/tmirhdee.html Mnentro 11:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC) The image of FDR in the light suit is a photo of him signing the declaration of war against Germany, not Japan. I checked this with the Library of Congress who are going to correct their own page, and who referred me to the following small photographs of the declarations of war against Japan and Germany, and which has the correct descrptions: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp/PPALL:@field(NUMBER+@1(cph+3b34942)) So does every one agree with this summary: Dark suit, visible armband = Declaration of war against Japan per [1] and [2] Dark suit, no armband = Lend-Lease act per Image:President Franklin D. Roosevelt-1941.jpg Light suit = Declaration of war against Germany per [3] Thoughts? Gdo01 19:35, 17 April 2007 (UTC) I agree. Mnentro 11:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

The source of the error appears to be incorrect labelling in the Library of Congress catalog. This error was carried through to Wikipedia/Commons in good faith by the uploader, and the image was uploaded as Image:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Japan December 1941.jpg. Following on the outreach to the Library of Congress described in the discussion above, the Library has corrected its catalog (see [4]).

To fully integrate this corrected understanding into the Commons and Wikipedia, I am taking the following actions:

1. I have tagged Image:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Japan December 1941.jpg for speedy deletion.
2. I have copied the Germany image into this file Image:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Germany.jpg.
3. I uploaded the correct Japan image from the National Archives as Image:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Japan.jpg.
4. I will reset all links to the file to be deleted to one or the other of the two new files.

I really hope this clears up all the confusion. Werewombat 04:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

See also: Discussion at User talk:Kresspahl#Move of File:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Germany.jpg to File:Franklin Roosevelt signing declaration of war against Japan01.jpg following de:Benutzer Diskussion:1970gemini#Bild Kriegserklärung durch Roosevelt in 2013. --Closeapple (talk) 22:38, 5 September 2013 (UTC)