American Family Portrait Outside Cinder-Block Ranch House, 1950s

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American Family Portrait Outside Cinder-Block Ranch House, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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American Family Portrait Outside Cinder-Block Ranch House, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-D2C79F

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Three generations arranged themselves against the pale cinder-block wall of what was almost certainly a recently built postwar ranch house, the kind of modest, optimistic construction that was going up by the millions across American suburbs in the early 1950s, and someone decided this was the moment to document the family in its current configuration. The adults dressed for the occasion — the older woman with her blue scarf, the men in dark suits and ties, the younger women in their good coats — because having your picture taken still meant something in the 1950s and required you to look like you were slightly better than you were on a Tuesday. A young mother held a baby in a knitted cap with the careful pride of someone presenting evidence, while two small girls in Mary Janes stood at the front with the patient resignation of children who have been told not to move and are testing the limits of that instruction. A small white terrier wandered into the center of the composition without anyone's permission, which is the one honest thing in the portrait. Everybody in the picture believed the house behind them represented arrival; the house believed nothing and has probably been renovated twice since.

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