AA-2026-874090
On the image
In the 1950s, when American masculinity was packaged in crew cuts, broad shoulders, and a studied indifference to sentiment, someone with a camera caught a young man sound asleep, bare-armed and thoroughly unguarded, curled tight around a small stuffed animal the way a child holds a favourite toy. The crew cut and the build are correct for the decade — he could be home from the service, or just home — but the sleeping arrangement belongs to a part of himself he had no reason to perform for. The person who took this picture either loved him enough to find it tender or knew him well enough to find it funny, and kept it either way. What the 1950s considered the private, embarrassing truth about a man, the rest of history would eventually call just being a person.
Visually related — by likeness
Young Man Asleep with Stuffed Animal, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-874090. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/young-man-asleep-with-stuffed-animal-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026874090,
title = {Young Man Asleep with Stuffed Animal, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-874090},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/young-man-asleep-with-stuffed-animal-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Young Man Asleep with Stuffed Animal, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-874090 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/young-man-asleep-with-stuffed-animal-1950s ER -
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