AA-2026-79D91C
On the image
A girl of about eight sits on the sill of a stone doorway holding a striped beach ball—red, yellow, and blue—positioned as though she were posing for a portrait photographer who wanted proof she owned a toy. She wears a white shirt, blue shorts, and dark sandals, and her blonde hair is curled in the mandatory style of the period. The stone walls and deep shadow behind her suggest a fort or a seaside location, the kind of place parents took children to photograph as a way of documenting that the holiday had happened and that the child had been there to verify it. The beach ball itself was a luxury item—cheerful, inflatable, pointless—which made it worth holding up for the camera, as though its presence proved something about the family's leisure and the child's entitlement to play. By the 1980s this same girl would throw such a ball away without thinking; in 1950, it was evidence of a outing worth recording.
Visually related — by likeness
Girl with Beach Ball at Stone Doorway, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-79D91C. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-with-beach-ball-at-stone-doorway-1950s.
@misc{aaAA202679D91C,
title = {Girl with Beach Ball at Stone Doorway, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-79D91C},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-with-beach-ball-at-stone-doorway-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Girl with Beach Ball at Stone Doorway, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-79D91C UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/girl-with-beach-ball-at-stone-doorway-1950s ER -
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