Community Center—Baway; Nursery school children listening to records during their rest period, May 1944
Vintage gelatin silver print
Print size: 10 ¾ × 13 in.
April 13, 2026
The youthful audience here looks a little fidgety, but anyone who grew up in the 20th century will recall being strictly advised to sit still while a record was playing on the turntable, lest it to skip. This picture was made by Esther Bubley, and it’s a fine example of her playfully candid photographs, which offered a window into the lives of everyday Americans in the 1940s.
Bubley studied photography at the Minneapolis School of Art, and shortly after graduation she was hired by Roy Stryker to work for the Office of War Information, where she documented life on the home front. A year later, both Stryker and Bubley left the war effort to work on a public relations campaign for Standard Oil of New Jersey—a project that yielded this photograph (vinyl records being a petroleum product).
Bubley's work is admired for bringing each person to life as an individual; that expressive quality is on full display here as our eyes travel around this group of children, who each radiate their own wonderfully distinct personality.
