Canada
AA-2026-8EBC12
On the image
A girl in a red puff-sleeved blouse, plaid skirt, and white ankle socks stands in a manicured flower bed outside a small regional airport terminal, holding what is almost certainly an ice cream cone, because the 1950s believed that flying was an occasion and ice cream was a reward for surviving the occasion. Behind her, neon lettering on the terminal building reads 'Trans Canada Air Lines,' which means someone drove a child to an airport, dressed her in her best outfit, and posed her in the petunias as evidence that the family had encountered aviation. Trans-Canada Air Lines served a network of small Canadian cities with modest terminals exactly like this one — low-slung, well-signed, landscaped with civic pride — before jet travel made the whole enterprise feel quaint and the terminals feel undersized. The flower beds were planted to project the reassuring message that flight was now routine, a thing for families and little girls in plaid skirts, not merely for daring men in leather helmets. Nobody told the little girl that in thirty years the airline would be renamed Air Canada, the terminal would be demolished, and standing in airport shrubbery for a photograph would be replaced by posting selfies inside a gate lounge the size of a shopping mall.
Visually related — by likeness
Girl at the Airport Flower Bed, Trans-Canada Air Lines Terminal, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-8EBC12. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-at-the-airport-flower-bed-trans-canada-air-lines-terminal-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20268EBC12,
title = {Girl at the Airport Flower Bed, Trans-Canada Air Lines Terminal, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-8EBC12},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-at-the-airport-flower-bed-trans-canada-air-lines-terminal-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Girl at the Airport Flower Bed, Trans-Canada Air Lines Terminal, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-8EBC12 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-at-the-airport-flower-bed-trans-canada-air-lines-terminal-1950s ER -
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