A History of Photography in USC Libraries Collections

160th Officers’ Wives Picnic at Southgate Park, July 11, 1951

This photograph is part of the bigger theme of vernacular photography, as it shows the frequent postwar activity of picnics in the park hosted by housewives of coworkers. The main aspect of this theme is to capture the use of photography in everyday life with the goal of establishing identity in the subject, and this photo was projecting society’s expectations for women in the Postwar Era. This image is significant because photos like these served to push the idea that a woman's primary role was that of a caretaker despite the fact that women played a large role in the war effort just a few years earlier, while men were in combat. As a result of the use of photography to try to box women back into their roles as housewives, many women in America began to strongly push back against this traditional view of gender roles as they felt they should not be weighed down by society’s expectations of them prioritizing family over themselves and being submissive to their male counterparts. This rising sentiment kickstarted the feminist movement that happened in parallel to the Civil Rights Era. Women were seeking to spread awareness and champion gender equality through workplace rights, reproductive rights, and domestic violence issues. In addition, many women sought to challenge the institutional and cultural inequalities that had held back the individual ambitions of so many.

This page has paths:

This page references: