AA-2026-5DE2A6
On the image
Five men and a child stand in a suburban backyard around a newly installed flagpole, the men in shirtsleeves and ties despite the summer heat, one holding the child's hand while another adjusts the halyards. The houses behind them are modest brick colonials with aluminum-framed windows and orderly yards—the houses of men who had returned from war and bought into the promise that a home in the suburbs was the point of having fought at all. One man stands apart on the right, shirtless except for work trousers, watching the others with the expression of someone who has already done the labor and is now observing the ceremony that will make the labor mean something. The flagpole itself is still bare, waiting for the flag that will transform this patch of lawn into something worth defending, and the men have dressed for the occasion the way they dressed for church, because in 1950s America both belonged to the same idea about what made a neighborhood worth living in.
Visually related — by likeness
Backyard Gathering with Flagpole, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-5DE2A6. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/backyard-gathering-with-flagpole-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20265DE2A6,
title = {Backyard Gathering with Flagpole, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-5DE2A6},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/backyard-gathering-with-flagpole-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Backyard Gathering with Flagpole, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-5DE2A6 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/backyard-gathering-with-flagpole-1950s ER -
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