1940 - St. Mark's Community Center

WPA instructor employed on the Music Project teaches music to boys and girls at St. Mark's Community Center at 1130 North Rampart Street.

Source: href="http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/wpa30.htm"

http://nutrias.org/photos/wpa/wpa30.htm

The children in that 1940 picture particularly the two schoolgirls in the
foreground, remind me that it's the appearance of children in old photos and
movies of the era that dates them as much anything else (such as automobiles).
Children back than seem to look so, well, "old".

This is even true of the
supposed teenagers in Annette Funicello beach/bikini era romps: they all look
about 35 years old. (Perhaps they were, to get round child labor and union
rules?)

Perhaps it's the dress and the hairstyles of the 1940s and 1950s
that made many kids of the era look like miniature grown-ups.

It doesn't
seem to work in reverse in today's fashions: A 7-year-old-girl done up and
painted to look like a tiny Mae West or Britney Spears for a Texas children's
beauty pageant still looks like a driven, unhappy 7-year-old. And an empty-faced
oaf of 35 trying to look like a 17-year-old in a backwards-turned baseball cap
still looks like a a 35-year-old oaf unlikely to try out for Mensa or run for
president!

JCG

1940 - St. Mark's Community Center

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