The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine (Pages 125-190)

   Summary 

    Families depended on their children for money back then and this created youth authority, language also became a barrier between parents and this made it hard immigrant teenagers to fit into society. In the 19th century teens began working in the street trades like shoe shining and or delivering messages, department stores were made possible through gash boys and girls who collected cash throughout the store. Many youths weren't restrained from adult only activities like gambling during this time. A youth culture emerged where there became a way of expression for teens and a threat to society, the government agreed on censorship teens. Books even became a threat to society by being explicit (hahaha). During the late twentieth century laws establishing reform schools and cutting youth jobs created teenagers. During this time teens became really short because of pollutants in the air while working in dangerous mills and factories. Most southern west boys became men very early and moving east to school meant that they lost responsibility school to being a child. The teenager was created with high school in order to become a member of the community must go through high school. The idea of high school took over after war world two because of low job opportunity; public school was a touchy subject. Teens have control over there own social life in high school, which was a huge change. Many parents couldn’t sacrifice their young men going to high school for economical reasons, but it was okay for there girls to go. Reading was essential in communities and colleges emerged for clergy menus sake. Funding for schooling was a huge issue especially poor kids education was considered an act of charity so they wanted to take that into consideration. High school equality was a huge problem between social classes; finishing high school was a huge effort and a replacement for college. High schools were run locally and Latin was known as the language of the elite. The Morills act was given for colleges to educate on agriculture. School was used at government’s best interest to control societies opinions. The late 19th century included team sports and extracurricular activities started to become very popular and developed character, there was a mayor focus on student life. Boy’s scouts were created to keep young men immature because there were complaints that the youth were growing up to fast. Teachers didn't see how students and parents still took schooling as a second option. Child labor laws were enforced because machines to there jobs. Juvenile courts took too much thinking of society to create a place were young people could stop taking the road they did and not become criminals as adults. In 1967, the Supreme Court decided juveniles needed a due process of law and made it a more adult trial. Juvenile courts allowed the public to observe the way youth worked and catches problems. The upper and middle class girls were boy’s angel’s lower-class girls fulfilled their desires. Teenage pregnancy was solved by marriage back then. Lower class girls were considered "charity girls,"
 they were given nice things by young men in exchange for sexual favors, and not considered particularly "flappers," or prostitutes.

Quote

    "Nevertheless, some qualities of these young people of the frontier--their love of mobility, their belief that they were entitled to have a good time, their sudden shifts from dependence to maturity and back--became part of that creature we know as a teenager" (Hine 137).

Reaction

  My reaction to this quotation was that this was finally the official start of the American teenager, a full description of it after the high school chapter, the sentence flowed in so well. Hine uses literal language all the time but here he describes the young person as a creature, and explains to the reader a teenager and how it was formed through one sentence. This is the type of writer that he is, he explains throughout the book and reminds the reader all the time how the createion of the teenager affects the teenager today. This connects to the overall theme of the book because it explains everything that he was just talking about the whole book and connects it to the creation of the teenager.