Girl at Airport Tarmac, 1950s — Archive & Atlas
AA-2026-046EE0
AA-2026-046EE0
On the image
A girl of about ten stands on the tarmac in a red cardigan and pleated skirt, holding something small in both hands, posed beside the stairs of a parked airliner while another twin-engine transport aircraft taxis past in the background. This was the era when airports had no security perimeter and children were dressed up and taken to watch the planes as a Sunday outing, a family treat that required no ticket and no reason beyond curiosity. The girl has been positioned for a snapshot the way you posed a child at the edge of a swimming pool or in front of a monument—a moment the photographer expected to mean something, though to her it meant standing still in good clothes while adults decided she was photogenic enough to document. The aircraft behind her, a Douglas DC-3 or similar twin-engine mainliner, was by then a workhorse nearing the end of its commercial life, and nobody in 1950 imagined that a decade later this tarmac would be sealed off and a child would never stand here again.
Visually related — by likeness
Girl at Airport Tarmac, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-046EE0. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-at-airport-tarmac-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026046EE0,
title = {Girl at Airport Tarmac, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-046EE0},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-at-airport-tarmac-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Girl at Airport Tarmac, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-046EE0 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-at-airport-tarmac-1950s ER -
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