AA-2026-8201D2
On the image
A backyard flock of turkeys and chickens occupies a sunlit dirt yard in the 1960s, the era when American families still kept small livestock as a matter of routine. The white turkeys dominate the frame with the docile confidence of birds that know they own the space, their heads held high in the way poultry hold them when they are fed regularly and bothered only occasionally. Behind them, the darker birds—some black, some mottled brown—occupy the same yard with the loose social arrangement of a working farmyard scaled down to suburban dimensions. A wooden stairway visible in the background, its treads still sharp and unpainted, suggests this is someone's actual home, not a tourist site or a formal farm. The whole scene captures the moment when keeping a handful of birds for eggs and eventual meat was still a normal part of domestic life, before that work moved entirely to industrial operations and nostalgia replaced necessity.
The historian's note
Backyard poultry keeping in the United States experienced a steady decline through the mid-twentieth century as large-scale commercial farming consolidated food production and suburban zoning ordinances restricted farm animals on residential lots. The 1960s represent a transitional period when small-scale domestic flocks still existed in many neighborhoods, though they were becoming less common. Families maintained turkeys and mixed poultry flocks primarily for seasonal meat production and for eggs, with birds occupying yards and outbuildings adjacent to homes. This practice was more prevalent in rural and semi-rural areas and in working-class suburbs but persisted even in established residential neighborhoods. By the 1970s and 1980s, such scenes would become rare enough to register as unusual or quaint rather than ordinary.
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Domestic Poultry Yard, 1960s. 1960–1969. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-8201D2. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/domestic-poultry-yard-1960s.
@misc{aaAA20268201D2,
title = {Domestic Poultry Yard, 1960s},
year = {1960–1969},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-8201D2},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/domestic-poultry-yard-1960s}
}TY - ART TI - Domestic Poultry Yard, 1960s PY - 1960–1969 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-8201D2 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/domestic-poultry-yard-1960s ER -
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