Toddler with Easter Basket, Midwest Residential Yard, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Toddler with Easter Basket, Midwest Residential Yard, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Toddler with Easter Basket, Midwest Residential Yard, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-28A6AE

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Easter Sunday in the 1950s required that even a child barely old enough to walk be turned out in a pale sport coat, matching cap, and white shoes, on the theory that the resurrection of Christ called for dry-clean-only clothing. This toddler has been deposited on the lawn between two clapboard houses and handed a wicker basket, which is the entire program as far as he is concerned.

The dark sedan parked in the drive behind him — broad chrome grille, rounded fenders, early-fifties American iron — belongs to whichever adults are standing just off-frame congratulating themselves on the outfit. The bare shrubs and just-greening grass put this squarely in the cold-snap optimism of a Midwest April, when families went outside for holidays because the calendar said spring regardless of what the thermometer said.

He is looking at the camera with the focused wariness of someone who has been picked up, repositioned, and told to smile at least twice already. The basket contains maybe four eggs. This is enough.

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