AA-2026-2DFF2A
On the image
A young mother in a pale wool coat and bright red ski pants has bent down to pack a snowball and hand it to a small child in a red jacket, which was the 1950s theory of how a snowball fight worked — one player does all the labor while the other gets to throw. The child, barely old enough to have reliable aim, stands in a crouch of pure anticipatory glee, which suggests this arrangement had been going on for some time and was entirely satisfactory to at least one of the parties. The woman's cat-eye sunglasses mark this as a household that had embraced postwar suburban leisure with some enthusiasm, snow being an extension of the same backyard-as-recreation-space philosophy that also produced the patio and the barbecue. Someone thought this moment worth documenting, which in the 1950s meant loading a roll of color film, going outside in the cold, and squinting through a viewfinder at people who were moving, which explains the blur and the fact that the picture exists at all. The whole scene is a small argument that winter, properly managed, was just summer with different equipment.
Visually related — by likeness
Mother and Young Child in Snowball Fight, Suburban Yard, 1950s Winter. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-2DFF2A. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/mother-and-young-child-in-snowball-fight-suburban-yard-1950s-winter.
@misc{aaAA20262DFF2A,
title = {Mother and Young Child in Snowball Fight, Suburban Yard, 1950s Winter},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-2DFF2A},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/mother-and-young-child-in-snowball-fight-suburban-yard-1950s-winter}
}TY - ART TI - Mother and Young Child in Snowball Fight, Suburban Yard, 1950s Winter PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-2DFF2A UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/mother-and-young-child-in-snowball-fight-suburban-yard-1950s-winter ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.