AA-2026-6C28E7
On the image
Someone bundled this child into a corduroy parka with a fur-ruffed hood the size of a satellite dish, on the theory that a proper coat should double as a storm shelter. The hood swallows most of her face and half her dignity, but she is smiling anyway, because in the 1950s a child photographed outdoors in winter gear was expected to look pleased about it regardless of the actual temperature.
Behind her the yard goes soft and gray, a wooden fence and a bare patch of ground doing nothing to suggest which town this is, which was fine, since the point of the picture was never the yard. It was the coat, and the fact that someone had spent real money on a coat built to outlast the child inside it.
That particular parenting math, buy it two sizes too big so it fits by winter's end, meant most kids of the era spent a few years looking like they were being personally supervised by their own hood.
The historian's note
The garment shown, a corduroy shell with a synthetic or rabbit-fur ruff, was a common cold-weather style for children in North America during the 1950s, often modeled loosely on Arctic parka design that had entered mainstream fashion after World War II through military surplus and outdoor-outfitter catalogs.
Color transparency photography of this kind, typically shot on early Kodachrome or similar amateur slide stock, became widely accessible to middle-class families during this decade, making informal backyard portraits like this one part of a new domestic visual record rather than a professional studio product.
No specific location, photographer, or subject name is identifiable from the scene itself; the fenced yard and bare ground are consistent with a suburban or small-town North American residential setting typical of the period.
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Visually related — by likeness
Girl in Fur-Trimmed Parka Hood, Backyard Portrait, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-6C28E7. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-in-fur-trimmed-parka-hood-backyard-portrait-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20266C28E7,
title = {Girl in Fur-Trimmed Parka Hood, Backyard Portrait, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-6C28E7},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-in-fur-trimmed-parka-hood-backyard-portrait-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Girl in Fur-Trimmed Parka Hood, Backyard Portrait, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-6C28E7 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-in-fur-trimmed-parka-hood-backyard-portrait-1950s ER -
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