AA-2026-1E6B09
On the image
Somewhere in the American interior, a group of women on what appears to be a historical society day trip or organized tour have stopped to be photographed at a cannon. The two in front have positioned themselves on either side of the barrel with the practiced ease of people who have done this at every stop, the one in blue having added a mink-trimmed stole to the occasion, because visiting a military fortification in the 1950s was still a hat-and-gloves affair and no one saw any reason to dress down for the eighteenth century.
The fort's reconstructed inner courtyard behind them — two-story barracks with covered wooden galleries running the full length — has the tidy, freshly painted look of a National Park Service restoration, the kind undertaken in the postwar decade when Americans rediscovered their frontier history with great enthusiasm and moderate archaeological rigor. The cannon itself is a field piece on a period-reproduction carriage, parked on the lawn as a permanent prop for exactly this kind of moment.
The women have no particular interest in ballistics. What they understood, correctly, was that you stood next to the cannon, someone took the picture, and that was how you proved you had been somewhere worth going.
Visually related — by likeness
Women Tourists at Historic Fort Cannon, USA, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-1E6B09. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/women-tourists-at-historic-fort-cannon-usa-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20261E6B09,
title = {Women Tourists at Historic Fort Cannon, USA, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-1E6B09},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/women-tourists-at-historic-fort-cannon-usa-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Women Tourists at Historic Fort Cannon, USA, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-1E6B09 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/women-tourists-at-historic-fort-cannon-usa-1950s ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.