Free Technology for Teachers: What Car Did Harry Lyon Drive?

Step 1: Determine the airplane and its historic significance.
The picture itself offers us a giant trace. Do a fast Google seek for “southern cross airplane” and the highest outcome will probably be a Wikipedia web page concerning the airplane. It’s vital to incorporate “airplane” within the search as a result of looking Google for simply “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash tune Southern Cross on the high of the outcomes. Additional down the search outcomes web page for “southern cross” you’ll discover hyperlinks to articles concerning the constellation of the identical title, hyperlinks to an vitality firm, and hyperlinks to a Brazilian award for chivalry. In reality, you gained’t see any reference to an airplane within the first ten pages of Google search outcomes when looking “southern cross.” Moreover, “southern cross airplane” isn’t even a time period that Google suggests while you enter “southern cross.”

As talked about above, the highest Google search outcome for “southern cross airplane” is the Wikipedia web page concerning the airplane. Learn by means of that web page and also you’ll study that it was the primary plane to be flown from the USA to Australia.

Step 2: Determine who flew on the airplane.

Additionally on that very same Wikipedia web page you’ll study that the 4 members of the flight crew have been Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner.

When you’ve recognized who the members of the flight crew have been, the subsequent step is to determine which one had a connection to Maine. To do that, open the Wikipedia web page for every member of the flight crew then use keyboard instructions of CTRL+F (Home windows computer systems) or COMMAND+F (Mac computer systems) to go looking every web page for the phrase “Maine.” Solely the pages for Charles Kingsford Smith and Harry Lyon embody a match for “Maine” and the match on Smith’s web page is simply discovered within the context of the phrase “remained.” Lyon’s web page consists of “Maine” as a part of a hyperlink to the Maine Reminiscence Community’s web site which is talked about within the hints for this problem.

Step 3: Discover the reference to Paris Hill.
If you happen to observe the hyperlink to the Maine Reminiscence Community from the Wikipedia web page about Harry Lyon, you’ll discover a pretty lengthy article about Lyon and his life together with that his dad and mom purchased a home on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

Alternatively, you can have adopted the trace about utilizing the Maine Reminiscence Community’s web site then headed there to do a search throughout the website for references to Harry Lyon.

Step 4: Discover the reference to a automotive.
On the very backside of this Maine Reminiscence Community web page about Harry Lyon you’ll see an image of Lyon sitting in a automotive in his driveway in 1927. (The picture is copyrighted so you will should view it there). 

Step 5: Determine the automotive.
That is the toughest a part of the entire problem. To do that you’ll need to enlarge the image discovered on the Maine Reminiscence Community’s article about Lyon. Happily, they supply a zoomable model of the picture. By zooming in on the picture you possibly can have a look at some vital particulars together with the form of the entrance door on the automotive, the form of the entrance of the automotive, and a little bit badge on the entrance of the automotive.

At this level the method turns into a little bit little bit of guesswork adopted by a technique of comparability and elimination. There are some factors to contemplate earlier than guessing at what sort of automotive is within the image. Right here’s an inventory of these factors to contemplate:
First, the image was taken in 1927, a 12 months earlier than the flight of the Southern Cross.
From studying about him, we all know that Lyon was not a person of outstanding wealth, however in all probability center to upper-middle class.
Primarily based on Lyon’s monetary standing in addition to trying on the particulars of the automotive we will in all probability take away luxurious manufacturers from our guesswork.

Once we zoom-in on the automotive we will see that it has some imperfections as the results of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Notable, there are what seems to be two picket bench seats behind the driving force’s seat. The again half of the physique seems to be picket as nicely.

Now that we’ve thought of the factors above we will begin guessing on the producer of the automotive and the manufacturing 12 months. Noting that vehicles didn’t considerably change from one mannequin 12 months to the subsequent at the moment, in the event that they did in any respect, we’re guessing the 12 months based on decade or half-decade is a viable method to this problem. At this level, turning to Google Picture search is our subsequent step. A seek for “Twenties vehicles” or “1910s vehicles” is a beginning place. Nonetheless, these outcomes usually function examples of luxurious vehicles of the time. We’re on the lookout for vehicles that would have been owned by center to upper-middle class individuals of the time. At this level within the course of it’s useful to have an inventory of American automotive producers of the 1910s and Twenties. Once more, we could flip to Wikipedia for such an inventory or to any variety of vintage automotive web sites for such an inventory.

Primarily based on the lists of American automotive producers and what we find out about Lyon, Ford is the commonest guess because it was the preferred model in the USA on the time and remains to be within the forefront of People’ minds right now once they consider vehicle producers. Some adults will nonetheless consider Studebaker as an American automotive producer. Dodge can be a standard guess because it satisfies each the worth and recognition elements of our quest. So now it’s a matter of evaluating photos of vehicles produced by these producers throughout the 1910s and early Twenties.

Use Google Photos to seek out photographs of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge vehicles produced in these a long time. Evaluate the images carefully to these of the image of Lyon sitting in his automotive and also you’ll begin to discover that the form of the door in his automotive doesn’t match these of Ford and Studebaker (they’re not as rounded on the backside). The entrance of Lyon’s automobile can be extra rounded than that of the Fords and Studebakers made on the identical time. A remaining element is on the hood of the automotive once we have a look at the radiator caps of the autos. In all three circumstances, the Dodge examples are per what we see within the image of Lyon in his automotive. The ultimate reply is a Dodge Touring automotive produced round 1919 (give or take a 12 months) that was modified within the again.

Disclosure: I spent not less than ten hours evaluating photographs of vehicles to the certainly one of Lyon sitting in his automotive. To confirm my details about the automotive I enlisted the assistance of 1 the highest vintage automotive preservationists within the nation, Jeff Orwig. Jeff is a good friend of mine and the curator of Bob Bahre’s beautiful automotive assortment housed on Paris Hill in Paris, Maine. You possibly can learn extra concerning the assortment right here.