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Washington, D.C., circa 1925. "Miss M.K. Little." Wondering, perhaps, if anyone out there in 21st century will remember her. Harris & Ewing. View full size.
Her left hand looks like it is sporting an engagement ring.
According to my research, this woman was May K. Little, born in Georgia in 1893. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She worked as a stenographer. She married Jasper M. Beall. May died in Washington on November 23, 1968, at the age of 75. She had no surviving children listed in her obituary.
Miss Little's formidably marcelled hair looks like it could stop a falling piano, and its accidental resemblance to the carved relief on the mahogany window seat rail is pretty amusing, since some of the period details of her costume and the design of the bench seem to equal each other in their dissonance with today's popular notions of 1920s styles. That high-gloss piano varnish finish on the photographer's prop chair, a department store "Empire" knockoff, remained the norm for most American wood furniture until at least 1930, but few antique lovers today seem to like it. Miss Little looks like she's dressed for a dinner dance, with that big "Spanish" tortoiseshell hair comb, and what is probably metallic gold lace on her dress shoulders and hem, and metallic gold or silver satin dance pumps, but taken altogether her ensemble seems more fussy than elegant, just like that prop window seat.
with her (slightly) wrinkled stockings.
Only a slight wrinkle in a stocking shows she is perhaps real and not a porcelain doll.
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