AA-2026-CAEEC5
On the image
Three women stand on the tarmac beside a Douglas DC-7, dressed in the careful day wear of 1950s air travel: coats, hats, and the assumption that boarding an airplane was an occasion requiring presentation. The aircraft behind them is a four-engine airliner with the gold and cream livery typical of American carriers in that decade, its nose pointed away, its cockpit windows dark. The women are posed as if for a formal portrait, holding still against the fuselage, the way people did when someone with a camera said they were making a record. They have come to the airport to fly somewhere, or perhaps they are seeing someone off, which was still a social event in an era when commercial aviation had not yet become a mechanism for moving bodies between terminals. The airplane was built to fly across oceans and time zones, and they were dressed to honor that fact. Within a decade, neither the ritual nor the aircraft would survive the shift to jet travel.
Visually related — by likeness
Family at Douglas DC-7 Aircraft, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-CAEEC5. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/family-at-douglas-dc-7-aircraft-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026CAEEC5,
title = {Family at Douglas DC-7 Aircraft, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-CAEEC5},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/family-at-douglas-dc-7-aircraft-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Family at Douglas DC-7 Aircraft, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-CAEEC5 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/family-at-douglas-dc-7-aircraft-1950s ER -
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