THE BIRTH and EARLY DEVELOPMENT of SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE by Copyright 2007 Kelley Massoni MA, Wichita State U
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BRINGING UP ABABY@: THE BIRTH AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE by Copyright 2007 Kelley Massoni M.A., Wichita State University, 1999 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Sociology and the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Kansas In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy _________________________________ Joey Sprague, Chair _________________________________ Robert J. Antonio _________________________________ William G. Staples _________________________________ Carol A. B. Warren _________________________________ Sherrie Tucker, American Studies Date Defended: ___________________ The Dissertation Committee for Kelley Massoni certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: BRINGING UP “BABY”: THE BIRTH AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE _______________________________ Joey Sprague, Chair _________________________________ Robert J. Antonio _________________________________ William G. Staples _________________________________ Carol A. B. Warren _________________________________ Sherrie Tucker Date approved_____________________ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Very much like my dissertation subjects, Helen Valentine and Seventeen, this project began as my conceptual creation and grew to become my own “baby.” However, again as with Helen and Seventeen, it took a village to raise this baby, and I am grateful and indebted to the people who assisted in this process. First and foremost, I must thank my dissertation committee members. Joey Sprague, my dissertation chair, “baby’s” godmother, and editor extraordinaire, helped me distill and analyze a sometimes overwhelming motherlode of data riches. As with the very best labor coaches, she knew when to cajole, to push, to soothe – and when to just leave me be. Many thanks to Bob Antonio, for having such faith in this project, offering helpful guidance along the way, and talking me off the occasional ledge. Thanks to Bill Staples and Carol Warren, whose graduate seminars shaped me as a scholar, and in doing so, shaped this project. Finally, thanks to Sherrie Tucker, who shared not just her expertise, but also the inspiration of her own life’s journey. Among the most fulfilling aspects of researching and writing this dissertation was the opportunity to get to know some of the special people who knew Helen Valentine. I am infinitely indebted to Estelle Ellis, former Seventeen promotion director and Helen Valentine’s lifelong friend. Estelle continues to emphatically and articulately promote Helen Valentine’s Seventeen to anyone who will listen. Having listened, I can only say that I am a believer! Estelle is the most remarkable woman I have ever met and her sharp wit, keen intellect, and zest for life forever changed my vision of aging. So, too, did two other former Seventeen staffers, Alberta Eiseman iii and Ingrid Lowenstein Sladkus, both of whom thoughtfully shared with me their incredibly lucid memories of Seventeen as a workplace more than 60 years ago. I have been blessed for having met these extraordinary women, and for their willingness to help me bring my own baby to life. I am extremely grateful to Helen Valentine’s family for their support of this project. Susan Valentine-Cooper, Helen’s granddaughter, was my first family contact, and she enthusiastically encouraged my exploration of Seventeen’s origins. Barbara Valentine Hertz, Helen’s daughter, graciously spoke to me about her memories of her mother and about her mother’s experiences at Seventeen. I am particularly indebted to Barbara’s daughters and Helen’s granddaughters, Valentine Hertz Kass and Barbara Hertz Burr, who shared with me invaluable documents from Helen’s life, including correspondence and pictures. These materials serve as the factual bones of my narrative; without them, the story would not be as convincing or as powerful. I benefited from the help of the patient archivists in charge of the Estelle Ellis collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, particularly Mimi Minnick and Reuben Jackson, who answered my myriad questions and assisted me in copying such precious and often fragile documents. A Professional Development Grant through the Midwest Sociology Society provided funding for one of my trips to the NMAH, and the University of Kansas funded a year of my work, through a Dissertation Fellowship. Finally, I am thankful for the people who gave me a context in which to write iv my text: my family. No scholarly endeavor can substitute for the loving support of real people. My children, Vanessa, Justin, Josh, and Marissa, and granddaughter Cora, made me laugh along the way, helping me to put “baby” in its place. I save my final and most heartfelt thanks for my husband, Steven. Wherever my path leads next, I am blessed and delighted to have you as my companion. v ABSTRACT Kelley L. Massoni, Ph.D. Department of Sociology, 2007 University of Kansas Bringing Up “Baby”: The Birth and Early Development Of Seventeen Magazine The 1940’s saw the development of two important components of contemporary popular culture: the teenager as a socially-constructed subjectivity and the teen magazine. This project uses an extended case study design to analyze how the two developed in tandem through the microcosm of the first teen magazine, Seventeen. Drawing on archival materials, historical sources, oral histories, interviews, and the magazine issues, I examine Seventeen as a text, a business, a workplace, and the product of cultural agents from its birth in September 1944 through its sixth birthday in September 1950, paying special attention to two periods in its history: September 1944 to September 1945, representing the World War II period, and September 1949 to September 1950, representing the postwar period. Seventeen was the conceptual inspiration of founding editor-in-chief, Helen Valentine. Valentine, who called the magazine her “baby,” envisioned a service and fashion magazine for high school girls, an idea that she sold to publisher Walter Annenberg. As the first teen magazine, Seventeen constructed the teen girl ideal in three venues: its editorial pages, promotional materials, and advertisements. Originally, Seventeen’s editorial staff balanced fashion fare with advice on citizenship and careerism. Concurrently, however, Seventeen marketed teen girls as vi consumers to business, often through their prototype, “Teena.” Advertisers responded in turn, selling not just products but a consumer role and feminine ideal to the readership. Seventeen’s content and its representation of the teen girl ideal shifted rather dramatically between its birth and fifth birthday. Over time, consumer-friendly content increased, while citizenship-focused content declined as Seventeen=s discourse moved away from Valentine=s progressive model of service and citizenship and toward the more traditional model of fashion, romance and homemaking. I explain these changes by examining the social forces that exerted pressure on Valentine and Seventeen from the beginning, including the changing cultural milieu, the economic structure of the magazine industry; reader preferences; and power relations at the magazine. By Seventeen’s sixth birthday, Valentine was no longer editor-in-chief, and the magazine and its teen girl ideal were moving away from their wartime service roots and into a new domesticated consumer future. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Reflection and Reproduction of the Feminine Ideal in Popular Culture 1 Chapter 2 The Birth of the Teen Magazine: Delivering Seventeen to the American Marketplace 26 Chapter 3 Seventeen at War: Teena in the World of Opportunity 64 Chapter 4 ATeena Goes to Market@: Seventeen Constructs the Ideal Teen Consumer 105 Chapter 5 ATeena Means Business@: Seventeen=s Advertisers Court, Counsel, and Construct the Teen Girl Consumer 141 Chapter 6 Seventeen at Peace: Teena Leaves the World, Enters the Home, and Loses Her Mind 184 Chapter 7 Divorce in the Family: Seventeen Loses its Matriarch B and its Way 225 Appendix A: Research Method 256 Appendix B: Images 270 Appendix C: Tables 277 Notes 279 Works Cited 324 viii CHAPTER 1 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Reflection and Reproduction of the Feminine Ideal in Popular Culture Contemporary western society is surrounded by media, immersed in media, dependent on media, influenced by media ... we have become, quite literally, a media culture.1 Media are so ubiquitous to our environment, however, that they sometimes become “like the air we breathe, ever present yet rarely considered.”2 Thus, many of us routinely go through the motions of daily life, reading newspapers, perusing magazines, watching television, playing video games, surfing the internet, listening to music B often without much conscious or critical consideration of our own media consumption. Media scholar Susan Douglas warns that to ignore media in this way allows them to continue Adoing what they do best: promoting a white upper-middle- class, male view of the world that urges the rest of us to sit passively on our sofas and fantasize about consumer goods[...]@3 As our modern cultural storytellers, the mass media join other influential social institutions, such as the family, the educational system, and organized religion, in teaching us about the world in which we live.4 And as Douglas enjoins, tales they do tell B tales infused with lessons on gender, race, sexuality, and social class. Tales that reveal (and revel in) the ideals and values of western