Teen obsession: Competing images of adolescents in American culture, 1945--1963

This study examines the obsessive nature of the discourse on teenagers in the print media during the postwar period, 1945-1963, and how an iconic imagery of adolescents infused the collective American imagination. In the aftermath of World War II, teens served as a major news item and stimulated intense debate, with varied cultural pundits claiming that the future of the nation rested in teenagers' hands. This animated and emotional discussion mirrored the adult nation's efforts to grapple with evolving postwar cultural ideas of global influence, materialism, work vs. leisure, crime, class, race and gender. Out of this national discussion, five prevailing images of youth coalesced: the swell kids, the angst ridden, the big spenders, the loafers and the delinquents (wannabees and criminal alike). These adult driven images ran the gamut from positive life affirming models; through the worrisome economic and leisure roles assumed by teenagers; and, ultimately, to the failure of youth within society, delinquency.;Given this national obsession, teenagers in the postwar period lived under a great deal of scrutiny from the society at large, with their every move catalogued and analyzed by academics, parents, community leaders, business leaders, religious leaders, politicians, journalists, educators, members of the mass media, and teenagers themselves. Despite these pressures, many teenagers, armed with their own cultural agendas and economic self-confidence, pushed back at the adult world, asserting the validity of their own brand of modern American life.;In an effort to adjudicate between adult and teen versions of these mythic images, this study explores the dimensions of postwar teenage culture from head to toe---dress, thoughts, behaviors, rituals, practices and customs. The source materials consulted include documents from the popular media---newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, pamphlets; the academic world---case studies, surveys, and monographs on adolescence; and teenage ephemera---teen magazines, yearbooks, school handbooks and newspapers. Even today, the images of teens formed in this earlier era frame our discussion of coming of age in America.