A yellow electric streetcar glides down the broad canyon of G Street NW at Eleventh, American flags snapping overhead, pedestrians in Edwardian dress threading between early automobiles — Washington, D.C. caught at the precise hinge between the horse age and the motor age in August 1914, the very month the Great War erupted in Europe. The colorized view looks toward the imposing U.S. Patent Office (now the National Portrait Gallery), its classical façade anchoring the vista. Published by W. B. Garrison, Inc. of Washington (Plate 1477), the card was posted on August 29, 1914 — just 25 days after Britain declared war on Germany — from a woman named "Aunt Alma" staying with "Midge" in the capital, telling her niece (addressed to "Mrs. Marguerite" in Poolesville, Maryland) she hoped to be home by Saturday or Monday evening, noting "it sure is raining some down here at present."