Born to Shop: Teenage Women and the United States Marketplace in the 1950s

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Communications

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Record, Angela Renee

Contributors dc:contributor

• Nerone, John

• American Studies

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3111630

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/86565