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November 1938. "Farm woman beside her barn door. Tulare County, California. No more horseshoes!" Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
This is a fascinating photo for a license plate collector such as me. Notably, among the collection are early plates made of porcelain enamel. The white pair (#531623) with the star over CAL was issued in 1916 and used for 4 years. The stars are metal tabs that validated the plates for their final year of use in 1919. Two plates below the pair is a porcelain 1914 plate, which was white on bright red, and was California's first year of issue. The porcelain is broken where the 4 of 1914 should be.
How many women today are as nicely dressed , as this farm wife is, posing by her barn? She's even wearing nice stockings!
Looks like she started by patching a hole and continued from there. My grandfather's old barn always had a few nailed down over holes.
That barn door would be worth some money today. I have seen old license plates on eBay as high as $200.
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