AA-2026-E568A2
On the image
A woman in her thirties stands astride a bicycle in a suburban driveway, wearing a strapless top and shorts, positioned as though for a portrait. Behind her a pale blue car from the early 1950s sits parked, its rounded fenders and horizontal taillights marking it as period-appropriate, while a brick house and white-roofed neighbors anchor the scene in the standard post-war American suburb. The bicycle itself is modest and utilitarian, the kind of thing a housewife might have owned, and she holds it with the careful balance of someone who has been asked to stand still for the camera rather than ride. The composition suggests she was asked to pose with it as a symbol of wholesome leisure and family life, the bicycle representing freedom and modernity in modest form—a prop in the mythology of the era that equated domestic comfort with happiness. What the photograph captures without meaning to is the precise moment when this was considered an appropriate way to spend an afternoon: a woman, dressed up, made to hold a piece of equipment and smile at a camera pointed by someone whose name no one would remember.
Visually related — by likeness
Woman with bicycle in suburban driveway, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-E568A2. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-with-bicycle-in-suburban-driveway-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026E568A2,
title = {Woman with bicycle in suburban driveway, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-E568A2},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-with-bicycle-in-suburban-driveway-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Woman with bicycle in suburban driveway, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-E568A2 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/woman-with-bicycle-in-suburban-driveway-1950s ER -
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