Children and Wire Fox Terrier at Console Television, American Home, 1950s

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Children and Wire Fox Terrier at Console Television, American Home, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Children and Wire Fox Terrier at Console Television, American Home, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-0AF894

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Two small children stand at the threshold of the television age, faces turned toward a large console set with the gravity of people witnessing something that will change everything — which, as it turned out, it did. The set itself is a piece of furniture as much as an appliance, housed in a walnut cabinet with dials and a speaker grille, because in the 1950s bringing television into your home was an occasion that required the thing to match the decor. A wire fox terrier has joined the vigil, ears up, apparently willing to give the medium a fair hearing. The wood-paneled walls, braided rug, and floor lamp behind them are the complete grammar of a certain American domestic ideal that subdivisions were mass-producing at a rate the country found perfectly reasonable at the time. The children are close enough to the screen to have worried any pediatrician, but the concept of a safe viewing distance was itself still being worked out, along with most of the other implications of the box they are staring into.

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