Water Skier on Single Ski, American Lake, 1950s

Archive & AtlasEstablished · MMXXIII

Water Skier on Single Ski, American Lake, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

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Water Skier on Single Ski, American Lake, 1950s — Archive & Atlas

Unattributed 1950–1959

AA-2026-8F2398

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Water skiing in the 1950s occupied the same cultural position that owning a boat does today — it announced that you had arrived, that your summers were organized around leisure rather than labor, and that someone in the family was willing to fall repeatedly in front of an audience. This man is riding a single slalom ski, upright and grinning, which in that decade made him either accomplished or reckless depending on how many attempts it took to get here.

The wooded shoreline curving behind him places this on one of the inland lakes of the American Midwest or upper South, the kind of recreational lake that motorboat culture colonized steadily through the postwar years. The tow rope connecting him to the boat pulling the camera is the whole contract of the sport: someone agreed to drive, someone agreed to ride, and someone else agreed to document it.

He is wearing a tank top and khaki shorts rather than a wetsuit, which in the 1950s was simply how it was done — the sport had not yet accumulated enough protective equipment to slow anyone down, which is one way to explain both the fun and the injury rates.

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