Some of you have seen this photo before (but not here). This is John and Sarah Hammell with friends in what I believe is a shiny new 1912 Cadillac Model 30 Touring Car. (Feel free to correct if you believe I have the car identification wrong.)
Unfortunately I do not have identifications for the friends. Everyone is in their Sunday best to go for a drive in John Hammell’s new car.
The building behind them is Madison School. See below for a view of the whole building.
Note the wood plank sidewalk in front of the school. Note also what might be horse manure in the street. If it is, that’s a hint that in 1912, not everyone was driving an automobile.
Another thing to note is that the 1912 Cadillac had the steering wheel on the right side. Before 1908 or so, all cars had the steering wheel on the right. Ford made it a big selling point on the 1908 Model T that it had the steering wheel on the left. I wasn’t able to determine exactly when Cadillac switched the steering wheel to the left side, but it was after 1913.
One interesting side note related to the identification of the car as a Cadillac: Two of my sisters happened to walk by 130 N Sherman Street in Albany the other day and got a chance to talk to the current owner. (You may recall that John Hammell built a brick garage behind that house, which John and Sarah owned at the time in addition to their residence at 122 N Sherman.) The current owner of the house at 130 said she had heard that someone built the brick garage for their Cadillac. I don’t know who the owner heard that from, but it is remarkable that such a detail would still be floating around the neighborhood over 100 years after John bought his Cadillac and nearly 80 years after the Hammells left that neighborhood.
Below is what Madison School looked like according to a 1909 postcard. It is a lovely bit of Victorian architecture. You can see the tower of the school on the left edge of the photo of the McClain house in this post. The house was three blocks or so from this school, as the crow flies.
There is still a school building on the site, but sadly, this building is long gone.
