On a September afternoon in 1912, someone paused at the White House's iconic North Portico fountain — a bicycle casually leaning against the building's gleaming white facade in the background — and thought of a friend in rural Maryland. This hand-colored Americhrome view, printed with the Leipzig-Berlin-New York pedigree of the Albany News Company, shows the North Lawn in its Edwardian prime: manicured annular flower beds blazing red around the central fountain, immaculate hedges, and the columned portico framing an era of particular political tension (Taft vs. Roosevelt vs. Wilson were weeks away from their historic three-way election). The card traveled to a Mr. Scott in Brolisville, Maryland, franked with a 1-cent Franklin stamp and canceled at Washington D.C. on September 3, 1912.