World War II saw a mass migration of veterans and their young families from city and tenement row houses to newly created suburbs. While city dwellers were accustomed to public parks and play areas, the back yard was something new.
“They move to the suburbs and they look at this space and start to change it relatively quickly into this social space that’s used in different ways,” said Lance Tawzer, Elmhurst History Museum curator of exhibits. “Americans started buying barbecues and having neighbors over.”
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The evolution of that space is the subject of the Smithsonian Institution’s traveling exhibit “Patios, Pools and the Invention of the American Backyard,” which runs at the museum from March 18 to May 29.
“Elmhurst is a quintessential suburban community,” Tawzer said. “This is part of our story.”
The freestanding exhibit, which incorporates a mix of photographs, historic drawings and period advertising, fills the interior of the museum’s gallery, but left its walls open. Tawzer turned to locals to help fill that space by soliciting pictures taken between 1950 and 1965 that show how Elmhurst residents used their back yards. The subject was challenging since people at that time viewed pictures as something devoted to special occasions rather than using them to just capture memories of hanging out, but after some digging Tawzer got results.
“There’s one shot of a dad in his stocking feet manning the grill and there’s a kid next to him,” Tawzer said. “Its quintessential Americana. You couldn’t have asked for a better picture.”
Other pictures show slides and tetherball games that would seem primitive today but were state-of-the-art at the time, or kids in a paddling pool wearing their swim caps.
“It’s going to be a different kind of exhibit,” Tawzer said. “It’s going to be really educational for the people who want to dive into the subject matter and nostalgic for people who want to see their neighbors in the 1950s in their bathing suits and grilling. Any time we get an opportunity to tap into the community it gives us that connection and gets us on their radar. We really want to position ourselves as a collector of all things regarding our community’s history.”
The exhibit will also display images from a 1950s Soukup’s Hardware catalogue depicting garden accessories, mowers and play sets, and incorporate a mural depicting a ’50s-style back yard and an interactive space for kids equipped with AstroTurf and a mini-barbecue that makes noises. Hula-hoops will be on hand alongside a 1950s croquet set and a rotary push lawn mower from the museum’s collection.
“Any time we do a traveling exhibit, we like to go in our collection and bring things out that are relevant,” Tawzer said. “It makes the overall exhibit more localized and gives it context and perspective.”
If you’re looking for more information on the topic, the museum will also be hosting a series of programs during the exhibit’s run including gardening lectures. Backyard vegetable gardens were a carryover from the victory gardens of World War II but then fell out of style.
“We lost it for a while and now it’s coming back,” Tawzer said. “It started off not as so much as an environmental movement as I’m doing canning and I want to have this stuff. Some people had that agricultural component to their back yard because they saw the opportunity to add to themselves. Now we’re seeing that coming back again because people like the idea of farm to table.”
The museum will also be celebrating bygone trends with a mid-century mod cocktail party, a nod to the formal and tiki-themed backyard bashes of the era.
“[The exhibit] talks about all the different aspects of discovering this space and deciding what they wanted to do there,” Tawzer said. “Some of them are obvious. Some are wackier than others. Some of the furniture was people’s inside furniture for a while. I think people will see that and say ‘My god, that’s what they had on their patio?'”
‘Patios, Pools and the Invention of the American Backyard’
When: 1-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday March 18 to May 29
Where: Elmhurst History Museum, 120 E. Park Ave.
Admission: Free
Contact: 630-833-1457; www.elmhursthistory.org