| This research project tells a story of teenage girls in the 1950s. This story centers on the construction of feminine adolescence and illustrates how, in the shadow of the atom bomb, middle-class culture emerged as indebted prosperity. The false affluence that appeared in the beginnings of the cold war contributed to a sense of anxiety that, within popular psychological discourses, was projected onto adolescence. Constructed as a period of storm and stress, adolescent angst allegedly resulted from ineffectual parenting and inappropriate socialization. The solution, popular culture implied, could be found in consumption and, for adolescent girls in domesticity. To construct this historical account, this project explores the constitution of feminine adolescence across several discourses, focusing specifically on how the popular culture of Seventeen magazine, teenpics, and Rebel Without a Cause promoted a consumer culture that valued domesticity over alternative versions of feminine identity. |
