Memorial Auditorium in Ft. Lauderdale, Circa 1950

The photograph shows Memorial Auditorium in Ft. Lauderdale, circa 1950. Made around 1950, it is the kind of image that turns a date in a history book into something you can actually see.

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.

Most photography of the period chased celebrities and headlines, which makes surviving images of daily routine all the more precious. This is what the world actually looked like when nobody thought it was worth remembering.