AA-2026-983D1C
On the image
Someone decided the stubble field made a fine backdrop, which tells you this was a farm family, or close enough to one that a picked-over cornfield counted as scenery rather than an obstacle. The girl has been buttoned into a yellow cardigan and a plaid pleated skirt with the kind of care that suggests a specific relative was coming to dinner, or a photograph was the whole point of the outing. Knee socks were standard armour against October in the Midwest, and she wears hers with the resigned competence of someone who has posed for pictures before.
Her brother got the shorts-and-jacket combination that mothers of the era inflicted on small boys well past the point of comfort, on the theory that bare knees in autumn built character. He is not smiling, which is either the cold or the shorts, and possibly both, and he has the look of a child doing a job he did not apply for. Neither of them chose the outfits, the location, or the moment, which is the entire premise of childhood in 1960s snapshots.
Behind them the land does the talking: a cut cornfield rolling back to a distant cluster of farm buildings and tree lines gone rust-coloured with the season, the unglamorous machinery of Midwestern agriculture standing in for a formal studio backdrop. Nobody in this photograph thought that view was remarkable. It was just Tuesday, or the closest thing to a portrait sitting the family was going to get that autumn.
Visually related — by likeness
Sister and Brother in Harvested Cornfield, Rural America, 1960s. 1960–1969. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-983D1C. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/sister-and-brother-in-harvested-cornfield-rural-america-1960s.
@misc{aaAA2026983D1C,
title = {Sister and Brother in Harvested Cornfield, Rural America, 1960s},
year = {1960–1969},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-983D1C},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/sister-and-brother-in-harvested-cornfield-rural-america-1960s}
}TY - ART TI - Sister and Brother in Harvested Cornfield, Rural America, 1960s PY - 1960–1969 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-983D1C UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/sister-and-brother-in-harvested-cornfield-rural-america-1960s ER -
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