In the 1950s and 1960s, after being fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for centuries, Afghanistan made several tentative steps toward modernization in the mid-20th century. Some of the biggest strides were made toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle while trying to maintain respect for more conservative factions.
Children in a Kabul, November 1961.
Though officially a neutral nation, Afghanistan was courted and influenced by the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War, accepting Soviet machinery and weapons, and U.S. financial aid.
This time was a brief, relatively peaceful era when modern buildings were constructed in Kabul alongside older traditional mud structures, when burqas became optional for a time, and the country appeared to be on a path toward a more open, prosperous society.
Women, wearing traditional burqas and Persian slippers, walk alongside men, cars and horse carts, in a street in Kabul, 1951. At the time, this street was one of only three paved streets in the capital city.
Progress was halted in the 1970s, as a series of bloody coups, invasions, and civil wars began, continuing to this day, reversing almost all of the steps toward modernization taken in the ’50s and ’60s.
Afghan boys, men, and a woman walk through a street in Kabul, March 1954.
Afghan boys play with kites as men walk past, November 1959.
Afghan women, men, and child in traditional dress ride in a cart through an arid, rocky landscape, November 1959.
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