Nixon’s Neckties

Huntington Library

Every Friday, Natalie Russell, a library assistant at the Huntington, e-mails several photos from the Jack Smith collection to a group of old-timers in hopes that someone can identify the people in the pictures. [Note: Make it a New Year’s resolution to label all your old photographs!]  Although I couldn’t identify anyone besides Jack and Richard Nixon, I was able to narrow the date the photo was taken to about 1950, based on Nixon’s necktie.   Nixon, May 26, 1950     Nixon, L.A. Press Club, election night, Nov. 9, 1950   I don’t suppose anyone, except for a complete research drudge like me, has ever made a study of Nixon’s neckties – a future dissertation subject, perhaps? Anyway, I was only able to find two photos in The Times archives (and we have lots of Nixon pictures) showing him with this tie. Nixon was consistently conservative in his choice of neckwear, preferring small, repeated patterns like this one, and he didn’t seem to wear his ties more than a few times.