The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager

by Hine, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780380973583
• ISBN10: 0380973588
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

<P>Teenagers occupy a special place in American life. They are envied and sold to, studied and deplored. They seem to be growing up too fast, and always immature. They are barbarians at the gate-and our only hope for a better world. What, then, is this thing called "teenager"-this strong, troubling creature caught somewhere between the rock of youth and the hard place of adulthood?</P><P>As author Thomas Hine reveals in this groundbreaking work, the teenager is a social invention shaped by the needs of the twentieth century. With intelligence, insight, imagination and humor, Hine traces the culture of youth in America-from the spiritual trials of young Puritans and the vision quests of native Americans to the media-blitzed consumerism of contemporary thirteen-to-nineteen-year-olds. He masterfully examines the ways in which young people have adapted over generations to meet-or at times to revise-the expectations and mores of their time. Here is an extraordinary story of torches passed, a saga of sons and daughters of settlers, immigrants, slaves and farmers coming to terms with their world and building America as they did so.</P><P><I>The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager</I> is a story of radical Massachusetts factory girls; teenage coal miners supporting their families; pistol-packing, whiskey-swilling frontier youths-and also of teenagers, dependent young people preparing for their lives by going to school even as they shape their culture as arbiters of the new. Throughout our turbulent history, generations of youths have stood at the forefront of social change-calculating the odds, taking the risks, and learning how to survive and thrive in the times. Thomas Hine's remarkable contribution is a focused study and a glorious appreciation of youth that challenges us to confront our stereotypes, to rethink our expectations and to consider anew the lives of those individuals-some of them living under our roofs-who are, as always, our blessing, our bane, and our future.</P>

Author Biography

Thomas Hine is the author of three previous books: Populuxe, Facing Tomorrow, and The Total Package. He was the architecture and design critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1973 until 1996, during which time he wrote more than 1,000 articles. He is a regular contributor to The Sunday New York Times "Arts and Leisure" section and has also written for Esquire, The New York Times Book Review, GQ, Slate, and other publications. Mr. Hine lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Introduction Are Teenagers Necessary?	1	(9)
The Teenage Mystique	10	(17)
Only a Phase	27	(16)
Coming of Age in Utter Confusion	43	(14)
Family Values	57	(19)
Declarations of Independence	76	(19)
Young Americans	95	(25)
Counting on the Children	120	(18)
The Invention of High School	138	(20)
Dangerous Adolescence	158	(19)
Dancing Daughters	177	(26)
Dead End Kids	203	(22)
The Teen Age	225	(24)
Boom and Aftershocks	249	(25)
Goths in Tomorrowland	274	(22)
Life After Teenagers	296	(9)
Sources and Further Reading	305	(10)
Index	315