Elvis Presley with his Dad and Grandma, 1959

The photograph shows Elvis Presley With His Dad And Grandma, 1959. It was taken in 1959, and like the best archival images it needs almost no explanation — the frame tells its own story.

The 1950s brought a wave of postwar prosperity, especially in North America. Suburbs, television sets, big chrome-trimmed cars, and rock and roll defined the decade, and a booming picture-magazine industry sent photographers to document all of it.

Pictures of ordinary life are some of the most valuable historical documents we have.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.