Throwback Thursday: American Boyfriends Edition

Fun fact: The house in Grant Wood's American Gothic is a real place that Grant Wood happened upon in his August 1930 wanderings around Iowa. It's in the city of Eldon 120 miles southwest of Cedar Rapids, so Grant Wood had to do some serious wandering to stumble upon it. He made a sketch of the house, painted his sister and his dentist in front of it when he got home to Cedar Rapids, and got a measly $300 when he sold it to the Art Institute of Chicago after entering it in a competition there.

Other fun fact: There's a visitors' center near the house that has an array of calico dresses and overalls you can borrow for keepsake photos, but if your boyfriend at the time is a no-fun stick in the mud you have to resort to getting photos in whatever you happen to be wearing.

Other fun facts: The house is built in the Carpenter Gothic style. The curve-up-to-a-point top of the Gothic window is called an ogive. The 1930 painting (Grant Wood conceived of and completed it in a matter of weeks) is in the Modernist style. You're welcome.