Franklin Style Touring Car Women Motorists Antique 1908 - RPPC Photo Postcard For Sale

A 5.5x3" vintage RPPC photo postcard from the estate of a vintage automobile postcard collector. This was part of a huge collection of antique postcards.

Photo Overview

A pair of confident Edwardian women pose behind the wheel of a large brass era touring car in this real photo postcard from around 1908. The woman at the right-hand drive wheel and her companion, both dressed in crisp white shirtwaists and dark skirts, sit in the tufted leather front seat of what appears to be a big four-cylinder touring car of the 1906-1908 period, likely a Franklin or similar high-end make, with its distinctive rounded barrel-style hood, twin gas headlamps, wooden artillery wheels, folded-down cape top, and running board toolbox.

The automobile is parked on a grassy lawn before a white picket fence and mature shade trees, a classic rural American setting from the earliest days of motoring. Images of women in command of the wheel during this pioneering era are especially desirable among early automobile collectors, and this unposted card comes from the estate of a lifelong vintage automobile postcard collector.

Historical Notes

When this photo was taken, fewer than 200,000 automobiles existed in the entire United States, and a woman driving one was still a novelty worth commemorating on film. Within a few years everything changed: the Ford Model T, introduced in late 1908, put motoring within reach of the middle class, and by the 1910s women motorists had become a symbol of the modern age, with figures like Alice Ramsey completing the first female-driven transcontinental crossing in 1909. The big, expensive right-hand-drive touring cars of this photo\'s era, hand-built by makers like Franklin, White, Stevens-Duryea, and Pierce, were rapidly rendered obsolete by mass production, and most were scrapped within a decade or two. Surviving period photographs of these machines, particularly with women at the wheel, have become prized documentation of the brass era of American motoring.

Browse our complete RPPC Photo Postcard photograph collection.

Text Present

Back, printed: "POST CARD"

Back, printed: "CORRESPONDENCE" / "ADDRESS"

Back, printed stamp box: "AZO - PLACE STAMP HERE"

Back, upper right in pencil: a small handwritten notation

Print analysis

This is a Type 1 original real photo postcard. The AZO stamp box with four triangles pointing upward dates the photographic paper to the 1904-1918 period, which aligns perfectly with the circa 1906-1908 automobile pictured. The print was made directly from the original negative at the time the photo was taken, making this a true period original.

Condition

All postcards we sell are in fair to excellent vintage condition. Please see photos for any tears, folds, smudges, or other age damage that may be present.