Full Description
The 1960s are commonly considered to be the beginning of a distinct "teenage culture" in America. But did this highly visible era of free love and rock 'n' roll really mark the start of adolescent defiance? In Inventing Modern Adolescence Sarah E. Chinn follows the roots of American teenage identity further back, to the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. She argues that the concept of the "generation gap"-a stereotypical complaint against American teens-actually originated with the division between immigrant parents and their American-born or -raised children. Melding a uniquely urban immigrant sensibility with commercialized consumer culture and a youth-oriented ethos characterized by fun, leisure, and overt sexual behavior, these young people formed a new identity that provided the framework for today's concepts of teenage lifestyle.Addressing the intersecting issues of urban life, race, gender, sexuality, and class consciousness, Inventing Modern Adolescence is an authoritative and engaging look at a pivotal point in American history and the intriguing, complicated, and still very pertinent teenage identity that emerged from it.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: "I Don't Understand What's Come Over the Children of This Generation"
1. "Youth Must Have Its Fling": The Beginnings of Modern Adolescence
2. Picturing Labor: Lewis W. Hine, the Child Labor Movement, and the Meanings of Adolescent Work
3. "Irreverence and the American Spirit": Immigrant Parents, American Adolescents, and the Invention of the Generation Gap
4. "Youth Demands Amusement": Dancing, Dance Halls, and the Exercise of Adolescent Freedom
5. "Youth is Always Turbulent": Reinterpretations of Adolescence from Bohemia to Samoa
Epilogue: Smells Like Teen Spirit
Notes Bibliography
Index
