Family Car: See yourself as others see you

Today's picture offers a what looks like a lot less than we have had to work with than in the past when dating the car in an image.

The image was copied from pictures owned by Florence Kling Harding, wife of Warren G. Harding, 29th President of United States.  As a matter of fact, according to the Florence Harding collector - one of the best on the country, that is lady herself sitting in the passenger seat.

The identity of the young woman on the bumper, taking the photographer's picture while they take hers is unknown.

My grandmother used to call these pictures - where pictures of the picture taker were taken "See yourself as others see you" images.

So, lets talk cars and what we know about this vehicle.  First off, the car is wearing Ohio Tags from 1915.  How do we know this?  Over the woman's right shoulder, our left when looking at the picture is the upper corner of a 1915 Ohio License Plate.  It has a distinctive design in that "OHIO" appear on a black rectangle along the that side of the plate.  And OHIO isn't spelling out.  It is in a "nested" design of an capital "O" with an capital "H" inside and a capital "I" in the center, which was popular back in those days.

1915 Ohio License Plate

While the symbol for Ohio was used on the right hand side of the plate starting in 1913, and repeated in 1914, the rectangle fill was Red, and red's never really register in black and white photographs of the era quite as dark as black, which was used in 1915, which was the last year that OHI design was used on the right side of the plate.

Had we not known that this was Mrs. Harding's car, we can tell by the length of the hood and the type of headlights that this was a vehicle of some stature. It is most likely a 1914 Cadillac based on the type of headlight and the placement of the coach lights.   And the lights on the front of car are electric, not oil, kerosene or gasoline lights, the later had a tendency to explode if everything wasn't just so. The car has the added feature of a "bumper" bar, which the young lady sits upon.

Bumper bars didn't start out as anything standard on a car.  They were, in the 1890's through WWI and into the early 1920's something added onto most American automobiles.  And this bumper bar is attached to the frame of the car.  Most cars, specialty and high end cars excepted, rolled off the line with little more than the front wheels, fenders and the front tips of their longitudinal springs to protect anything from the radiator back.

We can also tell from this picture that the car finish is clean and in good care.  This leads me to think that the car is fairly new.  To my knowledge, the Harding's had drivers as driving in this era wasn't very much fun, and starting and prepping a car for a trip took some time.

And seeing as Harding was elected to the United States Senate in 1914, taking his seat in 1915, this car was probably kept in Ohio and rarely used as the Harding's lived in Washington D.C.'s Kalorama neighborhood while the Senate was in session.

Normally, Mrs. Harding wrote in her albums carefully about who was in the picture when one was taken, but not this one.  The young lady's name is unknown.