AA-2026-EFE833
On the image
A girl of about ten sits on the grass in a public park, her blue and white checked dress spread across her lap, needle and thread in hand. Behind her families dot the lawn under shade trees, some with picnic blankets, the ordinary weekend dispersal of the 1950s middle class. She is sewing something small and white—a handkerchief, a collar, something that needed mending or finishing—and doing it in the open, in daylight, where anyone might watch. This was not peculiar then: a child could sit idle at a picnic with needlework in her lap the way she might later sit with a book, and the activity required no explanation or special permission. The camera caught her in the middle of a skill she was expected to possess, absorbed in labor so ordinary it was invisible, at the moment before such scenes would become historical.
Visually related — by likeness
Girl Sewing at a Public Park Picnic, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-EFE833. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-sewing-at-a-public-park-picnic-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026EFE833,
title = {Girl Sewing at a Public Park Picnic, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-EFE833},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-sewing-at-a-public-park-picnic-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Girl Sewing at a Public Park Picnic, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-EFE833 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-sewing-at-a-public-park-picnic-1950s ER -
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