Ainu, Aboriginal People of Asia Occupying Parts of the Japanese Island, c. 1950

The photograph shows Ainu, aboriginal people of Asia occupying parts of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, Russian Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, circa 1950. It was taken around 1950, 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.

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.