In 1996 I stumbled across these group photos in a junkshop in Northern California. I've held onto them all this time, uncertain what I wanted to do with them. Now I feel compelled to share how much life has changed in style and feeling from fifty-five years earlier.
If you recognise yourself in these photos and are not happy with being on this website, please drop me a line and I will remove your image immediately.
In the 1950's, America had more money than they knew what to do with. They were freshly past a world war in which they counted themselves the victors and the children in these photos are all the result of a frantic rush to create The American Dream in a hurry. Chances are, these children have never known hunger or deprivation, nor experienced the fear their parents and grandparents lived through in the Great Depression. These children are as shiny as newly minted pennies. They are the Baby Boom.
These children did not wear uniforms to school; America was weary of uniforms by this time and the range of colours, patterns and styles evident in the following photos are extraordinary when compared to previous decades. They often feature the latest, brightest patterns in Western, Tiki, Beatnik and the dawning Atomic Age themes.
When these kids misbehaved they were spanked, not tasered. No one went around shooting their classmates. No one was medicated to make them behave. After school, kids were sent out to mix it up with the rest of the neighbourhood and weren't welcome back until dinner. Afterwards was homework. Then television. Then bedtime.
There were athletic shoes, two different kinds: PF Flyers and Converse. Kids played hard, were bumped and bruised and no one got sued. Mothers mended and patched clothes and bought jeans in outrageous lengths and told their sons not to worry, they'd grow into them. If they didn't wear out first.
In all, the 50's were an astonishing moment in an astonishing age of a remarkable, young and vibrant country. These pictures capture much of that.
