Circa 1920. Queen Mary (1867–1953) with Princess Mary, the Princess Royal (1897–1965) being driven across rough ground in a tracked car by Army officers. Made in 1867–1953, it is the kind of image that turns a date in a history book into something you can actually see.
The 1860s was the first decade in which photography documented events on a large scale. Wet-plate cameras were hauled to battlefields and city streets, and portrait studios spread through towns on both sides of the Atlantic, making a photograph an ordinary family possession for the first time.
News photographs from this period traveled by wire and print, and a single strong image could shape how millions of people understood an event. This picture is one of the frames that did that work.
