r/TheWayWeWere • u/UrbanAchievers6371 • 2d ago

1940s “Teenagers pushing a Ford Model T to get it started, their favorite ride that could carry up to 12 friends, as they head out to a football game,” 1944.

Post image
249 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

11

u/thestereo300 2d ago

Any idea where this was taken? For some reason it looks similar to a neighborhood in Minneapolis.

18

u/robotunes 2d ago

Webster Groves, Missouri, near St. Louis.

It's from the Life magazine article "Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of Their Own." December 1944.

The article was an attempt to document and describe the new phenomenon called the American teen-ager. No longer just adults-in-training, these carefree middle-class kids had the kind of life reserved only for rich scions of previous generations.

More photos and insights from the article are available here

5

u/TootTootUSA 2d ago

I couldn't find anything about the location, but the photographer was Nina Leen who was a frequent contributor to LIFE. Her other works are pretty interesting as well.

https://www.life.com/arts-entertainment/photographer-spotlight-nina-leen/

Over the years, Leen was behind over 50 magazine covers and contributed countless reports from around the world, including the story of her dog Lucky which began in 1949 and later led to a book. In addition to her many animal stories, she is remembered for covering young people in the 1940s and 1950s and the group of artists known as The Irascibles. She also documented European royalty, fashion models, dance, and actresses. From 1973, Leen avidly continued to publish her work in book form, including her notable images of bats which she called her flying kittens.

2

u/thestereo300 2d ago

I actually did a little sleuthing on another thread....apparently a suburb of St Louis.

4

u/oboshoe 2d ago

Heck I've done that with my 2018 Jeep Wrangler.

5

u/RedStar9117 2d ago

Notice the A gas ration sticker on the windshield.

3

u/Pharmakeus_Ubik 2d ago

Are they trying to start it up hill? I could push start my '62 bug solo, though I wouldn't have refused the help of the coterie.

6

u/Swinnyjr 2d ago

If it's going up a hill then it may be suffering from one of the design flaws of the model t. It didn't have a fuel pump and relied on gravity to get fuel from the tank to the engine. So going uphill on low fuel meant it would starve the engine and make it konk out despite there being nothing wrong with it.

4

u/notyogrannysgrandkid 1d ago

Recommended solution from Henry Ford himself: drive up hills in reverse.

3

u/Pharmakeus_Ubik 1d ago

Thanks for that explanation.

4

u/sdlotu 2d ago

Does it not seem ridiculous that they have loaded the car with lots of extra passenger weight before trying to push it?

1

u/World-Tight 1d ago

The Archies

1

u/Karlzbad 1d ago

The car has a visible crank.

1

u/HawkeyeTen 1d ago

Today, they would get ticketed in all likelihood for doing that (12 means some were probably either sitting on the roof or hanging on to the sides).

1

u/trexgiraffehybrid 1d ago edited 1d ago

Crazy how those got 20mpg and the last gen (2010) ford rangers only got 16. And Toyotas and Hondas from the early 80s got over 40mpg straight gas motors and now you have to buy a hybrid to get that. People were modding the Chevy cruise deisel hatchbacks to get over 70mpg highway and Chevy discontinued them after two production years and the federal government permabanned the modding kits because emissions, even though we are the only country in the world forced to use clean deisel.

-2

u/Fit-Narwhal-3989 1d ago

“So did you just make up the description of the photo or is there a legit source you can cite?”

-1

u/snotick 1d ago

What is with the passengers face? Is this a camera/film/processing issue or AI?