Tourist at Minute Man Statue, Concord, Massachusetts, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Tourist at Minute Man Statue, Concord, Massachusetts, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Tourist at Minute Man Statue, Concord, Massachusetts, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-A3E3E8

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Sometime in the 1950s, a man in a short-sleeve shirt posed beside the Minute Man statue at the North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts, resting one hand casually on the pedestal as though confirming that the Revolution had, in fact, happened and he had been there to verify it. The bronze militiaman above him has stood in this spot since 1875, musket at his side, frozen in the permanent attitude of someone who just heard a distant gunshot and is about to do something about it.

The American vacation in this era operated on the assumption that historical sites required physical contact to be fully appreciated — not study, not reading, but a hand on the stone and a photo to prove the transaction was complete. Gettysburg, Independence Hall, Concord: the postwar tourist moved through the patriotic circuit with the quiet efficiency of a man punching a time card.

He is smiling the smile of a person who has driven a considerable distance and successfully located a landmark that was not going to move. The Minute Man, for his part, is looking somewhere else entirely.

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