Fast moving girl, or the Princess Braganca d’Avellar

The quality of this photograph begs for close inspection and you won’t be disappointed. The lady in the driver’s seat is Miss Ruth Maycliffe.  Notice I didn’t say she was the driver because this carefully staged shot took a lot of preparation. She would have been driven from  the Willard Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue – the imposing building behind the car and just two blocks away from The White House.

It might have been to promote our subject – described as an ingénue (“an innocent or unsophisticated young woman” says the dictionary).  A more familiar title would be actress and she was one of the three girls in Clyde Fitch’s ‘Girls’, the 1910 satire on the bachelor girls of the time which had been so very successful at Daly’s Theatre, New York. She played the youngest and most impressionable of the bachelor girls, and was the first apostate from the non-marrying faith.

Or perhaps it was to promote her motor car, and it's that which now deserves our attention. 1908 were difficult times for the American Auto industry and her machine was a rarity even when this picture was taken. One historian identifies it as a 1908 Maryland Roadster as manufactured by the Sinclair-Scott Company of Baltimore, a company far better known for their apple peelers and food canning machines. Read more HERE. I think he’s right,  but have a look at this 1907 Hay-Berg Roadster and you’ll see a very similar car?

Let me leave you with news of Miss Ruth Maycliffe.  She was the subject of gossip when she disembarked at New York from the Cunard Liner ‘Laconia’ in 1914 proudly announcing she was now ‘Princess Braganca d’Avellar’ having married a Portuguese nobleman. The New York Tribune of May 8th 1914 reported the story. “ I met the prince in Madrid having been introduced to him by King Alfonso”. “Do you speak Portuguese?” She was asked, “No, not a word.” She answered promptly. “Does the prince speak English?” “No, not exactly.” She replied with a smile. “He can say ‘two freed aigs’ and ‘Geev me wan kees’ and  ‘Ah loff you deery’  but that is the extent of his English. But we both speak French fluently, although love needs no language.”

Text Robin Batchelor, photo courtesy SHORPY.