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Constructing a Culture

Saturday Night Dance Party

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Constructing a Culture
Post-World War II: The Rise of the Teenager
As men and women returned home from war, how did post-World War II American life change?

What ideals emerged?

How were teenager's identities shaped as the new ideology emerged?
As a result of postwar fever, adults created a network of resources and tools to coerce and disseminate their concocted standard of upstanding American youth to teenagers across America.
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] In response to movement to the suburbs, the social-emotional American landscape promoted homogenization, blandness and conformity.[2] During this same moment, the American post-war life gave rise to a new class of people: teenagers.

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.
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[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.
"Tulsa Twins: They Show how much the Teen-Age Life has Changed" August 4, 1947 marked the third article that presented teenagers to the American public. shows....

Questioning their social role.[1] During wartime, as men enlisted to fight for freedom, a majority of American females took work outside the home, oftentimes in factories supplying troops with needed materials.[2] Postwar America was different: women were expected to resume traditional social roles and embrace domestic ideology. Images in LIFE magazine were meant to “enlighten and instruct;” therefore, Leen’s gaze groomed audiences to support traditional gender roles. [3] Through Leen’s images, women were encouraged to embrace domestic responsibilities (such as child rearing, home life, and spirituality) while men focused on areas outside of the home in the political and economic arenas. For example, in a large, multi-column vertical photograph, Betty is framed doing the laundry. Since “Chores are receiving new respect,” Betty’s serious expression and deep concentration is focused solely on the act of pinning clothes to the dry line.[4] The snapshot, tightly cropped on Betty’s duty, captures the audience’s attention and lures them into embracing domesticity for females; yet, at the same moment the photograph and accompanying narrative move deeper into promotion of social norms: “…for 1947 teens think of marriage much more seriously than their wartime equivalents.”[5] LIFE audiences understood the photograph’s implications as such: during formative years, Betty focuses on completion of her domestic responsibilities so that one day in the future she will make a good wife by providing a clean, ordered home for her husband.[6] Acclaimed historian of twentieth century American studies, Elaine Tyler May asserts that postwar there was “a rush of young Americans into marriage, parenthood, and traditional gender roles.”[7] Photographs, such as the esteemed Leen’s, acted as an agent during the late-1940-era when “flourishing postwar mass media produced…serial, unified images … [that] reflected a shared belief in the qualities of ideal American womanhood.”[8] As women struggled postwar to gain an identity, LIFE magazine took charge and provided their version of the “ideal American woman.” Leen, in promotion of the “rush” young Americans were experiencing, carefully framed the shot of Betty, who seemed to pleasantly accept domestic responsibility. Upon first glance, the photo is an opportunity to view a female teen in action; however, the underlying values associated with the image groomed LIFE’s audience to embrace gender divisions. Acting as signposts, Leen’s photographs visually prepare LIFE’s audience for mature gender-specific responsibilities that are also present in everyday American society.

[1] Rickie Solinger, “The Smutty Side of LIFE: Picturing Babes as Icons of Gender Difference in the Early 1950s,” in Looking at LIFE Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 201-219. Solinger’s essay speaks about the emergence of female images in LIFE magazine. Solinger, 202, poses the question, “Who is the American woman?” and continues by tracing female identity: “During the
Depression and the war, cultural arbiters like LIFE promulgated unified, iconic images of female identity.” Solinger’s essay explores the relationship between “babes” and recognizing the “American woman.” During the war era women were told to wear overalls and work outside of the home, in the next era they were told to rear children and obey their husbands. Despite these vast differences in woman’s identity, LIFE believed that they “produced a shared belief in the qualities of ideal American womanhood.”

[2] S. Mintz & S. McNeil, “Social Changes During the War,” Digital History, accessed February 13, 2016, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3493.
Digital History explains: “married working women outnumbered single working women as 6.3 million women entered the work force during the war. The war challenged the conventional image of female behavior, as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ became the popular symbol of women who abandoned traditional female occupations to work in defense industries. Social critics had a field day attacking women.” In postwar America, women were expected to resume traditional social roles by returning to the home with a focus on the family. Domesticity was the woman’s sphere.

[3] Erika Doss, introduction to Looking at LIFE Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 11. Doss explained that LIFE’s emphasis on presentation of powerful images “enlighten and instruct” audiences.

[4] Nina Leen, “Tulsa Twins: They Show How Much the Teen-Age World has Changed,” LIFE Magazine, August 4,1947: 77 – 82. Google Books, accessed February 13, 2016, https://books.google.com/books?id=1U0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA77#v=twopage&q&f=false.

[5] Nina Leen, “Tulsa Twins: They Show How Much the Teen-Age World has Changed,” LIFE Magazine, August 4,1947: 77 – 82. Google Books, accessed February 13, 2016,
https://books.google.com/books?id=1U0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA77#v=twopage&q&f=false.

[6] Rickie Solinger, “The Smutty Side of LIFE: Picturing Babes as Icons of Gender Difference in the Early 1950s,” in Looking at LIFE Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 201-219. Solinger, 201, provides female readership data asserting: “…more than 17 million women between the ages of 20 and 24 read LIFE in the early fifties…”

James L. Baughman, “Who Read LIFE? The Circulation of America’s Favorite Magazine,” Looking at LIFE Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 41-51. Baughman, 42, states: “In a 1946 review of research on magazine readership…the model readers for LIFE were 30 to 34 years of age, from the professional and skilled labor classes, married and college-educated.”

[7] Elaine Tyler May, introduction to Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 5.

[8] Rickie Solinger, “The Smutty Side of LIFE: Picturing Babes as Icons of Gender Difference in the Early 1950s,” in Looking at LIFE Magazine, ed. Erika Doss (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 201-219. Solinger, 202, contends: “Despite the potentially disorienting injunctions that mandated that American women wear an apron in one era and overalls in the next, the flourishing postwar mass media produced these serial, unified images indefensibly and with confidence that they reflected a shared belief in the qualities of ideal American womanhood.”
Visualizing Fashion
Introduction
Leen’s photo-essay focused heavily on trendsetting and the “New Look” of fashion.[1] With the emergence of Otherness, teenagers were viewed as potential threats. As Cold War hysteria crept into everyday American life, measures maintaining peace were developed. Consequently, conformity emerged as a tool to control this new group. In turn, objectification of teen girl fashion produced associations with group mentality and social acceptance standards. As teens were recognized as an emerging group, the consumer market identified girls as trendsetters, and LIFE magazine capitalized on this connection by pushing conformist ideals onto readers. [2] Established in presenting sameness, in her 1944 article tracing the livelihood of teen girls, Leen’s commentary explains: “There is a time in the life of every American girl when the most important thing in the world is to be one of a crowd of other girls and to act and speak and dress exactly as they do.”[3] Mimicking values presented in 1944, Leen’s 1947 photo-essay replicated idealized values associated with uniformity, and urged the1947 audience to accept and follow the status quo.
Teen Girl Fashion
As postwar divisions along racial, class and gender lines attempted to separate Americans, Leen’s article functioned as a unification force. By presenting real people, the Bounds twins and their circle of friends, in an up-close and personal format, Leen capitalized on the lure of images to captivate, instruct and persuade audiences.[4] In turn, through the visual promotion of superficial qualities, compliance with group thought was encouraged. In short, Leen’s presentation of clothing served a twofold approach: educate the public about new trends and encourage uniformity in dress and thought. Since postwar teens now had extra money for disposal, girls could shop for luxury items such as clothing, accessories and style-enhancing goods. [5] For example, in the large, three-quarter photograph opening the photo-essay, Leen positioned the Bounds twins to appose the change in style and trends. In the foreground, Betty stands clothed in a light-colored knee-length skirt that is topped off with a ruffled white, shoulder-bearing top trimmed with a ribbon. Her hair, shoulder length and curled, is pulled to one side and ornamented with a large flower. Open-toed sandals complete this “New Look,” a fashion style that began just months earlier when French designer Christian Dior presented his collection to the press and salons in France.[6] Secondary to Betty, Barbara stands in the background, her clothes reflect the 1944 “sloppy get-up” style of teenage girls: saddle shoes, bobby socks, rolled denim and an over-sized men’s plaid shirt. [7] Leen’s presentation of new trends discounted the mid-1940s oversized masculine-esque style of Barbara, and instead, embraced the frilly, feminine style Betty wore. Text supporting the photograph further emphasized conformist ideals: “…the changes in the lives of the seventeen-year-old Bounds twins are, according to LIFE correspondents around the nation, typical of all U.S. teen-agers.”[8] Replicating the 1944 installment, the 1947 lexical content pushed the threshold for conformity. If the photographs were not enough, language such as “typical of all teenagers” and “to be one of the crowd” reiterated the stress placed on conformist group mentality. There was much at stake for those who did not conform, such as marginalization, stigmatization and great disadvantages.[9] Throughout the six-page photo-essay, clothing and styling of hair pulled the audience into the commentary and unified readers to replicate trends and conform to the status quo.
Teen Boy Fashion
Not to be forgotten, even the males photographed in Leen’s photo-essay epitomized conformist ideals. In Leen’s June 11, 1945 “Teen-Age Boys” photo-essay boy’s style “always conforms to a pattern of sloppiness,” mimicking sameness ideals apparent in teen girl fashion. [10] Postwar, the male-dominated sphere focused on serious life endeavors and establishment of a future, which is reflected in the teen boy’s style of clothing. Unlike the sloppy dress and shenanigan pranks of the 1945 teen boy, 1947 was an era of earnestness. Although the style of clothing changed over the years, the ideals of “being one of the group” continued. Ergo, Leen’s boys in “Tulsa Twins” were dressed in formal attire, even when attending a dance party that took place in the basement of a Tulsa suburban home.[11] A shirt, tie and suit jacket adorn each of the boys in the posed portraits, further supporting the theme of social correctness and alignment with the group. Undoubtedly, like their counterparts, teen boys were presented to the audience as charming and classy. Their formal attire radiated order, power, acceptance of uniformity, and endorsement of white, bourgeois ideology.
Conclusion

Postwar America was a time for healing and peace. As America pulled itself together, Leen’s photographs functioned as signposts cuing whiteness ideology. The photo-essay, “Tulsa Twins” embraced traditional gender roles and supported conformity in style; acting as both a reflection and progression of bourgeois societal values. Although Leen had covered the emerging life of teenagers earlier in the postwar era, the 1947 assignment spoke directly to the audience, assuring readers that post-World War II teens were establishing themselves as mature members of American society. For readers of LIFE magazine, the reassurance directing teenagers to conform and embrace conventional gender roles may have quelled some adult fears as America entered the age of hysteria and the Red Scare.

[1] Karal Ann Marling, “Mamie Eisenhower’s New Look,” in As Seen of TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994), 8-14 .

[2] Kelly Schrum, Some Wore Bobby Sox: The Emergence of Teenage Girls’ Culture 1920-1945 (New
York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 2.

[3] Nina Leen, “Teen-Age Girls: They Live in a Wonderful World of Their Own,” December 11, 1944, 91.
https://books.google.com/books?id=10EEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA91#v=onepage&q&f=false.

[4] David Morgan, The Lure of Images: A History of Religion and Visual Media in America (London: Routledge, 2007), 1. Professor at Duke University specializing in visual culture and media, David Morgan, 1, asserted in The Lure of Images that there lies a triangular relationship between image, viewer and interpretation. Vision oscillates between scanning and concentrated focus, continually shifting between the two modes; thus, the photograph exerts its power over the viewer, “luring him/her in and offering something [the individual] seeks: happiness, nourishment, desirability, security, power, love, fellowship, social status, divine presence, refuge, etc.”

[5] Tom Engelhardt, “The Haunting of Childhood,” in The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), 132-154. Author and historian Tom Engelhardt, 134, states: “Between 1944 and 1958, the teenager’s average weekly income quadrupled from $2.50 to $10.”

[6] Sidney Toledano, “The New Look, A Legend,” The Story of Dior: The New Look Revolution, La Maison Dior, accessed January 20, 2016, http://www.dior.com/couture/en_us/the-house-of-dior/the-story-of-dior/the-new-look-revolution.

[7] Nina Leen, “Tulsa Twins: They Show How Much the Teen-Age World has Changed,” LIFE Magazine, August 4,1947: 77 – 82. Google Books, accessed January 7, 2016, https://books.google.com/books?id=1U0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA77#v=twopage&q&f=false.

[8] Nina Leen, “Tulsa Twins: They Show How Much the Teen-Age World has Changed,” LIFE Magazine, August 4,1947: 77 – 82. Google Books, accessed January 7, 2016, https://books.google.com/books?id=1U0EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA77#v=twopage&q&f=false. 77.

[9] Elaine Tyler May, introduction to Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 1-18. May, 5, states: “…it was the values of the white middle-class that shaped the dominant political and economic institutions that affected all Americans. Those who did not conform to them were likely to be marginalized, stigmatized, and disadvantaged as a result.” Hence the construction of cultural norms: those who were nonconforming were judged and outcast. Magazines such as LIFE promoted conformity through visual print. The image acted as visual propaganda, and the lexical accompaniment further persuaded appeal.

[10] Nina Leen, “Teen-Age Boys: Faced with War, they are just the same as they have always been,” LIFE Magazine, June 11, 1945: 91-97. Google Books, accessed February 17, 2016, https://books.google.com/books?id=_EkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=LIFE%20June%201945&pg=PA91#v=onepage&q&f=false.

[11] Jack Blair, “A History of Tulsa Annexation,” Report, (Tulsa City Council, 2004), accessed January 16, 2016, http://www.tulsacouncil.org/media/79331/Annexation%20History.pdf. 9. Between 1940-1950 Tulsa, Oklahoma experienced a surge in expansion in order “to accommodate the trend toward suburbanization.” Jack Blair, Policy Administrator for the Tulsa City Council asserted: “Tulsa expanded its land base slowly, but steadily, after World War II, to accommodate the trend toward suburbanization. Annexations during this period consisted of relatively frequent but small expansions. New housing additions were regularly incorporated into city limits as developers coordinated with the city for the provision of municipal services.”




    Life through the Camera Lens:
Analyzing Post-World War II Teenage Social Norms in LIFE Magazine
by Maureen Kudlik
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.