The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager

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?

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.

The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager 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.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-314) and index.

Thomas Hine, the author of four previous books, including Populuxe and The Total Package, is a writer on culture, history, and design. He is a columnist for Philadelphia Magazine and a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, Martha Stewart Living, Architectural Record, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other publications. He Lives in Philadelphia.