Leyendecker’s cover for The Saturday Evening Post portrays Main Street America, and it’s meant to be good fun.

It’s a ‘typical” evocation * of a family on the way to a Fourth of July Picnic (1915). Mom carries a child waving a flag, Dad, a porThe Posttly chap, is sweating in the heat, carries a basket, and mugging for the viewers with a typical boyish smirk is their boy, probably “junior.”

Featured Image: Joseph Leyendecker. Fourth of July Picnic (1915), cover art. The Saturday Evening Post (July 3, 1915).

*The Post was myopic when it came to diversity.