Jacques Plante, Who in 1959 Became the First Goalie to Ever Wear a Protective

Captured here: Jacques Plante, who in 1959 became the first goalie to ever wear a protective face mask. 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.

Every era has habits that make perfect sense at the time and none at all a century later. Photographs like this one are valuable precisely because no written description would be believed without them.