The photograph shows Muhammad Ali, 24, Flirts With Future Wife Belinda Boyd, 16, At A Bakery Shop In Chicago. They Married A Year Later In 1967. It was taken in 1967, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.
The 1960s moved fast: the space race put satellites and then astronauts overhead, television replaced print as the main source of news, and social change swept through music, fashion, and politics. Photojournalism was at its peak, with picture magazines and newspapers employing armies of photographers.
Pictures of ordinary life are some of the most valuable historical documents we have. Grand events were always going to be recorded, but a normal day — how people worked, dressed, shopped, and passed the time — survives only when someone happened to point a camera at it.
