Girl with Garden Hose, Suburban Backyard, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Girl with Garden Hose, Suburban Backyard, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Girl with Garden Hose, Suburban Backyard, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-7EA3FB

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A small girl in a bright orange cardigan and blue shorts stands on a well-kept suburban lawn holding a garden hose, grinning at whoever pointed a camera at her, which in the 1950s was nearly always a father who had recently discovered color film and was working through the implications. The yellow hose trails behind her in a loose coil across grass that has clearly been tended with the seriousness that postwar homeowners brought to lawns, on the theory that a perfect lawn was the visible proof that a man had his affairs in order. Behind her, an adult sits in a metal lawn chair beside the house in the easy posture of someone who has decided the afternoon is finished, while a pair of rounded American cars from the early-to-mid 1950s sit at the curb with the bulk and self-assurance of objects that cost more than most people's first houses. The girl has been handed the hose, which means someone trusted her not to immediately soak the furniture, a level of faith that her expression suggests may have been optimistic.

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