AA-2026-9A7727
On the image
Water skiing arrived in America in the 1920s but it was the postwar boom — outboard motors suddenly affordable, lakefront cottages suddenly attainable — that turned it into a suburban rite of summer, the aquatic equivalent of the backyard barbecue. Here a boy rides what appears to be a kneeboard or early mono-ski board in vivid yellow, a piece of equipment that signals someone in this family was an early adopter, the kind of person who read the sporting-goods catalogue the week it arrived. He is being towed from a motorboat whose stern railing and gas can are visible in the foreground, because someone decided the most useful thing they could do was hang over the back of the boat with a camera while the driver accelerated. The wooded freshwater lake and gently developed shoreline place this squarely in the upper Midwest, where families in the 1950s had collectively decided that no summer weekend was complete until at least one person had been dragged across open water at speed. The boy's posture is composed, even slightly bored, which is the expression of a child who has been doing this long enough to know the camera is there but not long enough to start showing off.
Visually related — by likeness
Boy on Yellow Kneeboard, Tow-Boat View, American Lake, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-9A7727. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/boy-on-yellow-kneeboard-tow-boat-view-american-lake-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20269A7727,
title = {Boy on Yellow Kneeboard, Tow-Boat View, American Lake, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-9A7727},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/boy-on-yellow-kneeboard-tow-boat-view-american-lake-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Boy on Yellow Kneeboard, Tow-Boat View, American Lake, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-9A7727 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/boy-on-yellow-kneeboard-tow-boat-view-american-lake-1950s ER -
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