Pics from the past #3: Similar child, similar field

Well then. This 117-year-old photograph has some striking similarities to yesterday's photo. We have a young child standing in an unkempt yard or field. And, again, written on the back are 17 months and 1897.

I have a theory. I think these two photographs were taken in a studio with outdoorsy props and a backdrop. For one thing, the blurriness of the background looks a little off to me. Secondly, look at the position of the trees in the background, particularly the ones on the left. Here are both photos...

The trees are in fairly similar locations, but the props in the foreground are different. That makes me think there's a backdrop in use. But I could be wrong.

Next question: Is the same 17-month-old pictured in both photographs? Here are the faces, side-by-side...

What do you think?

Finally, for fun, let's think about this kid and what her (his?) life was like. For the sake of argument, we'll say the child was born in January 1896 and lived a long, happy life. Here were some of the cultural milestones along the way.

• Age 7 (1903) — The Great Train Robbery, a key film in early cinema, is first shown to the public
• Age 16 (1912) — Titanic sinks
• Age 18 (1914) — World War I begins
• Age 23 (1919) — Boston Red Sox sell Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees (Ruth himself was 24)
• Age 29 (1925) — The Great Gatsby is published
• Age 33 (1929) — "Black Tuesday" stock market crash
• Age 43 (1939) — World War II begins
• Age 49 (1945) — Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Age 57 (1953) — Elvis Presley walks into the offices of Sun Records for the first time
• Age 67 (1963) — John F. Kennedy assassinated
• Age 73 (1969) — Neil Armstrong steps on the moon
• Age 73 (1969) — Woodstock Festival is held
• Age 78 (1974) — Robert Redford and Mia Farrow star in a movie version of The Great Gatsby
• Age 81 (1977) — Star Wars is released in theaters
• Age 84 (1980) — Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series
• Age 87 (1983) — Duran Duran releases the album Seven and the Ragged Tiger
• Age 94 (1990) — Goodfellas is released in theaters and one of its final shots references 1903's The Great Train Robbery
• Age 100 (1996) — George Burns, who was also born in 1896, dies
• Age 100 (1996) — The Nintendo 64 gaming system is released