AA-2026-02594D
On the image
Somewhere in small-town America in the 1950s, the local community had organized a children's parade, which required every child under ten to be installed in or on something covered in crepe paper flowers and then pointed down the main road past the Goodyear tire dealer. The logic of the era held that a child riding a tricycle decorated like a parade float was participating in civic life, and that civic life was the kind of thing you organized whether or not anyone could explain what it was for. A man in a suit jacket and a flat-brimmed lodge cap watches from the sidewalk with the expression of someone who has attended this event every year and considers attendance a form of office. The dark late-1940s or early-1950s sedan parked along the curb — chrome grille gleaming as though it has a role to play — gives the whole scene the accidental gravitas of a country where cars had gotten very large just as the ceremonies surrounding children had gotten very elaborate. The toddler sitting inside the wagon float buried in white and orange tissue paper looks mildly puzzled, which is the appropriate response to being dressed up and placed inside a decoration.
Visually related — by likeness
Children's Decorated Bicycle and Wagon Parade Float, Small-Town USA, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-02594D. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/children-s-decorated-bicycle-and-wagon-parade-float-small-town-usa-1950s.
@misc{aaAA202602594D,
title = {Children's Decorated Bicycle and Wagon Parade Float, Small-Town USA, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-02594D},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/children-s-decorated-bicycle-and-wagon-parade-float-small-town-usa-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Children's Decorated Bicycle and Wagon Parade Float, Small-Town USA, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-02594D UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/children-s-decorated-bicycle-and-wagon-parade-float-small-town-usa-1950s ER -
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