AA-2026-1CE068
On the image
Two children stand in front of a blue-painted livestock pen, dressed as though the West were something that could be purchased and assembled in an afternoon. The girl wears a straw hat with a red band and a yellow shirt with dark trousers, the uniform of a junior ranch hand from a mail-order catalogue. The boy, smaller and grinning, holds a toy gun in one hand and wears a proper plaid shirt with a pearl-snap front and a cream cowboy hat, the kind of precision costume detail that suggested to 1940s parents that a child properly outfitted for the frontier would develop character.
Behind them the agricultural pen stands empty and industrial, the sort of structure built at county fairs and livestock shows across the Midwest and rural South. Both children smile directly at the camera with the easy confidence of kids who have been assured that dressing up like something glamorous—the frontier, independence, outdoor work—is the same as being that thing. They have no way of knowing that within a decade this particular vision of the American West will have calcified into television, making their costumes look ancient before they outgrow them.
The historian's note
County and state fairs in the 1940s featured livestock exhibitions, agricultural demonstrations, and children's events where rural and urban youth were encouraged to participate in competitive shows and costume activities. Children's Western wear and cowboy costumes became standard fair attire during this period, reflecting the cultural dominance of Western frontier mythology in American entertainment and education. The blue livestock pen in the background is typical of permanent fair infrastructure built to house cattle, sheep, and horses during multi-day exhibitions. This scene captures the mid-century conflation of agricultural life, frontier nostalgia, and children's entertainment that characterised American rural recreation in the Depression and postwar years.
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Children in Cowboy Costume at Rural Fair, 1940s. 1940–1949. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-1CE068. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/children-in-cowboy-costume-at-rural-fair-1940s.
@misc{aaAA20261CE068,
title = {Children in Cowboy Costume at Rural Fair, 1940s},
year = {1940–1949},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-1CE068},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/children-in-cowboy-costume-at-rural-fair-1940s}
}TY - ART TI - Children in Cowboy Costume at Rural Fair, 1940s PY - 1940–1949 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-1CE068 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/children-in-cowboy-costume-at-rural-fair-1940s ER -
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