Two Girls on the Tarmac, TCA North Star, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Two Girls on the Tarmac, TCA North Star, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Two Girls on the Tarmac, TCA North Star, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-6CFEE8

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Two girls, perhaps five and eight years old, stand on an open airport apron a few feet from a Trans-Canada Air Lines Canadair North Star being serviced at the gate — not behind a fence, not in a terminal, simply standing on the tarmac as though the ramp were a sidewalk. TCA was Canada's flag carrier and proud of it, and in the 1950s the boundary between passenger and aircraft was managed mostly by good manners and the assumption that everyone present had ordinary reasons to be there. A ground worker climbs the boarding stairs behind them without paying the girls any notice, because there was nothing unusual about the arrangement. The North Star's four Merlin engines, famous for a noise that passengers described as a sustained mechanical shriek, would soon make conversation inside the cabin impossible, which was considered a reasonable trade for crossing the country in eight hours. The girls have their hands on their hips in the universal posture of children who have been asked to stand still for a photograph and have strong opinions about it — unaware they are also standing inside an idea about airports that would not survive the decade.

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