AA-2026-E3C3AC
On the image
Somewhere at a 1950s industrial exhibition or trade fair, two women in pleated skirts and neck scarves have posed their small daughter in front of a haul-truck tyre that stands taller than all three of them combined, because in that decade the correct response to a machine of implausible scale was to put your family next to it and smile. The tyre belongs to one of the enormous open-cast mining trucks that were just beginning to redefine what a vehicle could weigh, and the yellow superstructure looming behind them suggests a piece of heavy earthmoving equipment that an entire manufacturing division was proud of. The women hold exhibition pamphlets with the proprietary satisfaction of people who have collected documentation they will almost certainly never read. Behind them, hundreds of other visitors mill through the same exhibition in their Sunday best, because in the 1950s attending an industrial trade show was a recreational outing that required a pressed skirt and good shoes. The whole scene is a perfect record of the postwar faith that machinery on this scale was not alarming but thrilling, a promise of progress you could bring the children to see.
Visually related — by likeness
Two Women and Child Pose Before Giant Mining Haul Truck Tyre, Trade Show, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-E3C3AC. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-women-and-child-pose-before-giant-mining-haul-truck-tyre-trade-show-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026E3C3AC,
title = {Two Women and Child Pose Before Giant Mining Haul Truck Tyre, Trade Show, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-E3C3AC},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-women-and-child-pose-before-giant-mining-haul-truck-tyre-trade-show-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Two Women and Child Pose Before Giant Mining Haul Truck Tyre, Trade Show, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-E3C3AC UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/two-women-and-child-pose-before-giant-mining-haul-truck-tyre-trade-show-1950s ER -
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