Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll — and feminism, fashion, war protests, first driver’s licenses and the hottest slang of 1943.
In this piece, one of many projects conceived and written by members of our teenage Student Council, three students from across the United States chose 10 gems from the Times archives about the lives of young people in the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.
Below each, the writer whose name appears in parentheses introduces it and muses about how times have changed for teenagers today — and how they haven’t.
What can you find in Times Machine?
Teenage Attitudes, 1946
“It’s Up to You Parents, Says a Teenager” (1946)
Many teenagers complain that while adults don’t treat us as equals they simultaneously expect us not to act childish. Who would have known that teenagers in the ’40s felt the exact same way?
This article is a fascinating glimpse into teenage attitudes towards life, school and judgmental adults that reads almost as if it were written today rather than a whopping seventy years ago.
Though we no longer dance the jitterbug or view high school as “something which will be vaguely useful in the future,” much of the rest of the piece rings true. For example, the author writes, “Most of us are idealistic — passionately idealistic about whatever we believe in, from communism to capitalism.” Then and now, as non-jaded newcomers to the “real world,” we see big problems and we want to change them — and we truly believe we can effect that change.
Adults might look at us and write off our naïveté, but hey, as another great Times article about teenagers put it, “Generations of them have been going to the dogs since there were dogs.” (Rhea Singh)
Activism and the Vietnam War
“Humphrey Chides Antiwar Pickets” (1965)
Many have drawn comparisons between the Vietnam protests and protests today, especially the Black Lives Matter movement. Back then, Vice President Hubert Humphrey chided college protesters because as he put it, “The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”
I find it interesting that both then and now, it is young people taking such a vocal stand on issues. College campuses across the U.S. have often been at the forefront of political movements, which speaks to youth’s idealism — perhaps one of our most enduring characteristics. (Rhea Singh)
Kent State and Violence on Campuses
“Mitchell Regrets Campus Gunfire” (1970)
This article discusses the reaction of the former Attorney General John N. Mitchell to the Kent State shooting and the Jackson State killings by the State Highway Patrol. The line that most stood out for me: his statement that “There can be no greater evidence of disorder in society than the sound of gunfire on a college campus.”
The attorney general was referring then to the killings of students at the hands of state authorities, but today this quote is chillingly relevant for a different reason as students from kindergarten through college have been murdered in campus shootings.
The use of force described in this article — for example, protesters met by “shotgun-wielding city policemen” — also makes me think of news today about young protesters attacked with pepper spray and Tasers. Although some things have changed from then to now, protesting and police methodology are still crucial topics. (Robert Schwartz)
Fashion
“Oh the Times They Are A-Changing: Daring Now Means Mid-Calf” (1968)
Maybe your grandma forgot to mention all the inane fashion crazes of her youth, but her untold tales of skirts getting longer and shorter and ties getting fatter and skinnier reveal a lot about changing attitudes in the mid-twentieth-century.
In this article about skirt length, a confluence of novelty, feminism and practicality seems to have encouraged the popularity of new, “daring” mid-calf skirts. What factors come together to dictate teenage fashion today? (Cooper Veit)
Sex
“For Teen-Agers, a Different Kind of Sex Education” (1977)
Sex has been on the teenage mind as long as there have been teenagers. But in 1977, we were a good deal less suave about it — and a lot less egalitarian about it too, it seems.
This article focuses on the lines that teenage guys used in 1977 to try to “entice.” To a reader today, they illustrate the strangeness of the culture at the time, one in which girls were assumed to not want sex and where guys needed to be cheesy enough to say, “If you say no I’ll become mentally ill.”
Today, though we’ve come a long way in terms of both sex education and equal rights around sexuality, consent is still an issue. So as comparatively enlightened as we are, I suppose we still have our own problems. (Robert Schwartz)
Feminism
“A 16-Year-Old’s Winning Campaign” (1977)
This article focuses on a 16-year-old girl, Shawn Leach, who beat a bunch of adults, including some well-known feminists of the era, to win a delegate spot in the first National Women’s Conference in Houston. It is inspiring to me to see someone that young campaigning for this movement so successfully in the 1970s.
One thing that bothered me was that this article published Shawn’s grade average of B-minus. Who cares what her average is? As the article shows, I don’t think that your amount of dedication to your schoolwork necessarily shows what kind of person you are or how qualified you are. I like that college admissions now are changing their viewpoints to a more holistic admissions process so that the entire student is evaluated. (Robert Schwartz)
Driving
“The Teen-age Captures the Car” (1956)
Getting a driver’s license is a rite of passage for the modern teenager as we all suffer the adventures of hopeless parking practice and the first of many awkward license pictures. After you finally have that piece of plastic, you can drive anywhere at all — although “anywhere” generally just consists of school, work and your best friend’s house.
It seems this milestone was just as important to teenagers in the ’50s, albeit with a few differences.
Most articles related to teenagers and driving nowadays focus on safety issues like drinking or texting while driving. In this piece, the author is more concerned with her son not being able to run errands. Nowadays, teenagers seem to be much busier with school and activities, so it is unlikely that I, with my own brand-new license, will be out buying groceries any time soon.
This entertaining article is a fun and lighthearted glimpse into the past of a teenage activity that is still as important to our independence as it was seventy years ago. (Rhea Singh)
Drugs
“Drug Use Rises in City’s High Schools” (1969)
Teenagers in 1969 seem to have had the same sort of issues with drugs as we do now, but they also seemed to have been pretty responsible, if this article is to be believed.
Synthetic drugs were making the rounds then and are making the rounds now, but, as the article points out, “some students [had] begun to warn others about the dangers of using these drugs.” I suppose one consolation for worried parents of any generation is that most teenagers have enough common sense to be wary of things that can hurt them.
One quote from this piece rings especially true today: “Most students who use it — and many who don’t — consider marijuana no more harmful than alcohol and tobacco.” I’d say the attitude about marijuana among the teenagers I know today is that, assuming you don’t drive under the influence, it may be even less harmful.
There are many insights in this article that parallel issues, ideas and attitudes around marijuana today. (Robert Schwartz)
Rock ‘n’ Roll
“Patience Called Key to Grasping Teen-age Music” (1959)
For another look at the youth of olde we recommend you read this article, which blamed “a longing for emotional security” and a romantic desire for “one who will prove permanent” for the popularity of rock ’n’ roll.
Looking at popular music today it is easy to make several similar hypotheses about what drives teenage audio habits. “ ‘Lusty musicianship’ and intense, repetitive lyrics, many of which pledge eternal love,” are ever the currency of youth.
On the flip side, to claim that popular music is devoid of “sophisticated lines, witty phrases and nuances of music and lyrics” ignores the subjective nature of music and the changing tastes of youth. Nowadays, I would argue, music has more wit — look at Kanye’s entire persona, for example. (Cooper Veit)
Slang
“Teen-age Slang” (1943)
Ask your grandpa about childhood swearing standbys and favorite slang: Just don’t be offended when he refuses to share and instead says, “Shred it, wheat!”
From the success of “okay” to the extinction of “harvest it,” research on how youth use and spread slang could fill many books. Some words from this time period seem deserving of a retro revival: “hep” to mean awesome, “blitz the cold storage plant” for raiding the refrigerator, and “murder” to exclaim approval.
Although there were also a couple of phrases that we thought showed that this generation was just trying too hard. “You ain’t woofin?” was “You aren’t kidding?,” “You shred it, wheat” was “You figure it out.”
This article shows that the slang lexicon of 1943 was almost as hep as our slang today. (Cooper Veit)
More?
All the Student Council projects we’ve featured this school year
Our 2014-15 series that used archival articles from Times Machine: Throwback Thursday