AA-2026-93B67F
On the image
Four women and a man are arranged around a picnic table in a well-kept suburban backyard, doing what the postwar American dream had specifically promised them: enjoying leisure in their own outdoor space. The man stands at the table eating, which was more or less his entire assigned role at a 1950s cookout once the charcoal work was finished. The women manage everything else — the thermos, the condiments, the paper bags, the passing of food — in the cheerful, efficient way of people who have never questioned the arrangement. A baby carriage sits at the edge of the frame, unattended, because in this decade a backyard was considered a perfectly sufficient supervisory presence. The woman seated with a headscarf reaches across the crowded table toward something just out of her grasp, which is the most honest summary of the whole afternoon.
Visually related — by likeness
Backyard Cookout, Suburban America, 1950s. 1953–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-93B67F. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/backyard-cookout-suburban-america-1950s-93b67f.
@misc{aaAA202693B67F,
title = {Backyard Cookout, Suburban America, 1950s},
year = {1953–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-93B67F},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/backyard-cookout-suburban-america-1950s-93b67f}
}TY - ART TI - Backyard Cookout, Suburban America, 1950s PY - 1953–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-93B67F UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/backyard-cookout-suburban-america-1950s-93b67f ER -
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