Constructing a Culture
Adults created a network of resources and tools to coerce and disseminate their concocted standard of upstanding American youth.
Post-World War II life had changed as GI’s returned home to begin families, and the rise of the middle-class began with the creation of suburbanization in the early 1950s.[1] Donald Miller, professor of History at Lafayette College and narrator of “From War to Normalcy,” explained that suburbanization promoted homogenization, blandness and conformity.[2] Furthermore, American post-war life gave rise to a new class of people: teenagers.
Although the war with Europe and Japan was over, America was not free from threat. By 1946 America had a new threat: Communism. The social, political, and economic ideology and movement was a threat to all that America stood for, including freedom, capitalism and the belief in a God.[3] Life in suburban America looked hopeful and homogenous, appealing to many GI’s and their families. In reality, paranoia on the home front created an underlying stress that would appear full-force in the years to come. The United States had entered a new “Cold War” that “pitted the United States and its Allies against the Soviet Union and its supporters.”[4] “East- West confrontations over Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and many other hot spots created the Cold War, which lasted from 1946 until 1991.[5] The Cold War affected America and its ideals of “liberty and equality...”[6]
Despite the growing terror spreading across the American landscape, teenagers were viewed as a "threat" that could be controlled. Film and print media attempted to constrain teenagers by using different modes of educational material. Informational sources such as The Journal on Audio-Visual Learning and Educational Screen: The Audio-Visual Magazine aimed at disseminating information and promoting conformist ideology to educators, who in turn, cultivated and circulated "idealist" dogma upon their students, American teenagers. Across America, teens were "tuning in" to films created by production agencies such as Cornet. During this same moment, magazines such as LIFE circulated photo-essays concerning the new group and acted as an agent of culture to the public using multidimensional images. The hope was that the image would "speak louder than words" and further impress white, bourgeois ideals upon the impressionable youth.
Post-World War II life had changed as GI’s returned home to begin families, and the rise of the middle-class began with the creation of suburbanization in the early 1950s.[1] Donald Miller, professor of History at Lafayette College and narrator of “From War to Normalcy,” explained that suburbanization promoted homogenization, blandness and conformity.[2] Furthermore, American post-war life gave rise to a new class of people: teenagers.
Although the war with Europe and Japan was over, America was not free from threat. By 1946 America had a new threat: Communism. The social, political, and economic ideology and movement was a threat to all that America stood for, including freedom, capitalism and the belief in a God.[3] Life in suburban America looked hopeful and homogenous, appealing to many GI’s and their families. In reality, paranoia on the home front created an underlying stress that would appear full-force in the years to come. The United States had entered a new “Cold War” that “pitted the United States and its Allies against the Soviet Union and its supporters.”[4] “East- West confrontations over Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and many other hot spots created the Cold War, which lasted from 1946 until 1991.[5] The Cold War affected America and its ideals of “liberty and equality...”[6]
Despite the growing terror spreading across the American landscape, teenagers were viewed as a "threat" that could be controlled. Film and print media attempted to constrain teenagers by using different modes of educational material. Informational sources such as The Journal on Audio-Visual Learning and Educational Screen: The Audio-Visual Magazine aimed at disseminating information and promoting conformist ideology to educators, who in turn, cultivated and circulated "idealist" dogma upon their students, American teenagers. Across America, teens were "tuning in" to films created by production agencies such as Cornet. During this same moment, magazines such as LIFE circulated photo-essays concerning the new group and acted as an agent of culture to the public using multidimensional images. The hope was that the image would "speak louder than words" and further impress white, bourgeois ideals upon the impressionable youth.
[1] Donald Miller, “Program 23: The Fifties/From War to Normalcy,” Video, Fred Barzyk (2000; WGBH Education Foundation.), Online Video.https://www.learner.org/series/biographyofamerica/prog23/transcript/index.html.
[2] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “The Cold War,” Digital History, Retrieved (January 7,2016)
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3401.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3401.
[3] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “The Cold War,” Digital History, Retrieved (January 7, 2016)
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3401.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3401.
[4] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “Hearts and Minds,” Digital History, Retrieved (January 7, 2016)
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3423.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3423.
[5] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “The Integration of Professional Sports,” Digital History, Retrieved (January 7,2016) http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3424.
[6] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “Post-War Era Timeline,” Digital History, Retrieved (January 7, 2016)
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=16&smtID=4.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=16&smtID=4.
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Contents of this path:
This page references:
- Motor Scooter Fun
- The Changing Style of Fashion
- Saturday Night Dance Party
- Chores: It's a Girl Thing
- Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of their Own
- Teen-Age Boys: Faced with war, they are just the same as they have always been
- Feminine, Frilly, Full-Skirted Finery
- Bored Kids
- FILM "Projector"
