Everyone around the world has seen this photo from September 11, 2001. Many have tried to take credit for it, copy it, or use it for commercial gain. But as another anniversary of the day approaches we want to share the facts behind this iconic photograph.
The photographer who made the photo is New Jersey newspaper photographer Thomas E. Franklin, and the three firefighters in the photo are William Eisengrein, George Johnson and Daniel McWilliams.
The photo was taken late in the afternoon of September 11, 2001, around 4 or 5 p.m. A trio of firefighters at the World Trade Center site caught Franklin’s eye. "I would I say was 150 yards away when I saw the firefighters raising the flag. They were standing on a structure about 20 feet above the ground. This was a long-lens picture; there was about 100 yards between the foreground and background, and the long lens would capture the enormity of the rubble behind them," Franklin said.
"As soon as I shot it, I realized the similarity to the famous image of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima," Franklin recalled. In 1945, when the US was in World War II, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped a picture of six Marines raising Old Glory on Mount Suribachi on the Pacific island. That photo became an icon and the basis for a Marine Corps memorial sculpture in Washington, D.C. The Battle of Iwo Jima also is recognized as the beginning of the end of the campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific.
The three firemen decided to raise the flag on the spur of the moment. They had been digging in the rubble and searching for survivors when they were told to evacuate. During the evacuation, McWilliams saw the flag on the stern of a yacht inside a boat slip at the World Financial Center. He took the flag and its pole from the yacht and carried it to the evacuation area.
McWilliams asked Johnson to give him a hand. Eisengrein saw them and joined in. The firefighters found a flagpole within rubble, and used an used a improvised ramp to climb to the pole to raise the flag. As they performed their act, Franklin aimed his lens in their direction.
Franklin's photograph appeared in the September 12th edition of The Record of New Jersey, his employer. Reaction was swift and emotional. The flag-raising firemen were hit with numerous calls from friends and family. Their first reaction was surprise, because they didn't know Franklin took their picture.
The Record itself received 30,000 requests to reprint the photograph, which the paper initially granted if they were not for profit. Among the requests from commercial concerns were to reprint it on shirts and other objects.
The newspaper stopped the gratis distribution and instead asked for donations to its disaster fund, which eventually swelled to $400,000. The money was distributed to charities selected by McWilliams, Johnson and Eisengrein. The photo eventually was made into an authorized poster sold through the paper's Web site and private companies.
Slight variations and outright replicas began to appear across the US in the Fall of 2001. Firefighters with flags began to appear in paintings and drawings, and on pins, buttons, T-shirts, hats and Christmas ornaments. Taverns, hair salons and offices hung the picture. Phoenix, Arizona, firefighters reenacted the scene before the start of the first game of the World Series featuring the Diamondbacks and New York Yankees. Through Associated Press distribution, the Franklin photo was used by many magazines and papers.
At the end of 2001, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and Editor & Publisher magazine named it the best picture of the year. The photo was on the short list of photographs considered for the Pulitzer Prize.
The use of the firefighter photo for profit became so rampant that by December 2001, the firemen and The Record hired a New York law firm to protect the paper's copyright and block unauthorized uses for commercial purposes.
One revenue generating venture that was approved was the "Heroes 2001" stamp issued in 2002 by the US Postal Service with the Franklin image. President George W. Bush unveiled the stamp in the Oval Office with Franklin, Johnson, Eisengrein and McWilliams in attendance.
Franklin remains modest about the picture, saying that it was only by chance that he witnessed the scene. The only reason the photo was printed in The Record was because Franklin got a police boat ride to Liberty State Park, hitchhiked to his car in Jersey City, and used the facilities at a hotel to transmit it after he could not get around a roadblock.
"In the back of our minds, all photographers believe we're going to get 'the big one.' I've shot hurricanes (and) earthquakes. But I've never seen anything like this," Franklin said. "There were times during the day that I cried. Nothing had ever touched me as emotionally as this. But I had a job to do. Once I made deadline, all I wanted to do was see my wife and my son."
In all, 343 firefighters died in the Trade Center disaster, along with 23 New York City and 37 Port Authority police officers and six medical rescue workers. The Thomas Franklin photo stands as a fitting reminder of their dedication and sacrifice.
