Representing the Juvenile Delinquent: Reform, Social Science, and Teenage Troubles in Postwar Texas
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Texas A&M University-San Antonio Digital Commons @ Texas A&M University-San Antonio History Faculty Publications College of Arts and Sciences 2004 Representing the Juvenile Delinquent: Reform, Social Science, and Teenage Troubles in Postwar Texas William S. Bush Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.tamusa.edu/hist_faculty Part of the American Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Copyright by William Sebastian Bush 2004 The Dissertation Committee for William Sebastian Bush Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Representing the Juvenile Delinquent: Reform, Social Science, and Teenage Troubles in Postwar Texas Committee: Mark C. Smith, Supervisor Janet Davis Julia Mickenberg King Davis Sheldon Ekland-Olson Representing the Juvenile Delinquent: Reform, Social Science, and Teenage Troubles in Postwar Texas by William Sebastian Bush, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2004 Dedication For Mary and Alexander Acknowledgements Researching and writing a dissertation tests the emotions as well as the intellect. The two become so closely intertwined that scholarly advice invariably doubles as a salve for personal anxieties. Whether they knew it or not, practically everyone mentioned below bolstered my ever-flagging confidence even as they talked out ideas or problems that seemed bound within the more detached constraints of a dissertation project. Others just listened patiently to barely coherent thesis ideas, anxious brainstorming outbursts, and the usual angry tirades against academia. Although I am still far from pleased with this dissertation, it could not have reached even its current state without the guidance and caring of a number of loved ones, friends, and colleagues. Among the faculty of the American Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin, Mark Smith and Janet Davis have worked closest with me on this project. Both read individual chapter drafts, even in quite primitive form, and offered detailed comments. Mark allowed me the space to develop my own arguments and approaches, while Janet tempered my tendency to focus on narrow primary sources by urging me to connect them to larger historical questions and currents beyond the borders of Texas. I received similar encouragement and v guidance from Julia Mickenberg and Desley Deacon. My intellectual development was deeply influenced by graduate seminars with Jeffrey Meikle, Bill Stott, Robert Crunden, Judy Coffin, William Forbath, and Myron Gutman, each of whom gave generously of their time for long discussions outside of class. I am also grateful to King Davis and Sheldon Ekland-Olson, who agreed to serve on my committee on very short notice; and to Steve Hoelscher and Robert Abzug, who took the time to advise me even though I never worked with them formally. I owe thanks to many of my fellow graduate students. Shelley Powers has been a friend, confidant, and sounding board. Adam Golub taught me a great deal about teaching, and showed me how to be more ambitious in my approaches to course design as well as scholarship. In addition to acting as an impromptu therapist, Allison Perlman shared her encyclopedic, even photographic, knowledge of American Studies lore with me at times when I was terribly stumped. While I cannot possibly do justice to everyone here, I would also like to thank (in no particular order) Amy Nathan, Fred Nadis, Kim Hewitt, Cary Cordova, Joel Dinerstein, Carolyn de la Pena, Holly Alloway, Mike O’Connor, Benita Heiskannen, Chris Jennings, Richard Ribb, Chantal Tetrault, Shanti Kulkarni, and Ed Donovan. My undergraduate students in the “Cultural History of American Teenagers” class have helped me in innumerable ways to make connections between culture, policy, and everyday experience. In the American Studies office, Cynthia Frese and Janice Bradley always offered reliable advice and information. vi Research librarians lent me invaluable assistance. At the Center for American History at the University of Texas, Evan Hocker and others helped me sort through the vast and untapped archives of the Hogg Foundation, and guided me through arcane policies regarding photocopies and photographic prints. Laura Saegert at the Texas State Library redacted sensitive documents efficiently, guided me through detailed finding aids, alerted me to sources I might otherwise have missed, and engaged me in thoughtful conversations about the history of crime and punishment in Texas. Librarians at the Houston Metropolitan Research Center also proved eager to discuss library holdings regarding Houston’s youth programs, and were always helpful. Mary Wright has supported me, in every sense of the word, through the often difficult times that have accompanied this project. Our son Alexander has introduced me to the world of children in an intimate way that no amount of research could ever match. Any successes in this project are inescapably theirs; errors and missteps belong entirely to me. vii Representing the Juvenile Delinquent: Reform, Social Science, and Teenage Troubles in Postwar Texas Publication No._____________ William Sebastian Bush, Ph.D The University of Texas at Austin, 2004 Supervisor: Mark C. Smith Using a range of archival, oral, and textual sources, this dissertation explores the history of how American “common sense” has conferred adolescent status selectively since World War II, when the teenager first emerged as a widely accepted cultural idea. It focuses especially on the prominent role of scientific experts in popularizing causes and solutions for teenage troubles, many of which continue to shape popular understanding. As historians have demonstrated, sociologists and psychologists achieved unprecedented prominence in the 1950s, often by publishing influential studies of “maladjusted” teenagers, alienated families, and “delinquent subcultures.” The dissertation illustrates the interplay of these dominant national narratives with local and regional reform efforts that have gone largely ignored by scholars. Not only were public debates over “youth troubles” more fierce at the local level, they sometimes wielded a surprising viii influence over state and national policymakers always eager to find models for new policies. Texas presents an especially representative setting for my study. Situated in the heart of the Sun Belt and “borderlands” regions, Texas’ growing political and economic clout, and racial and ethnic diversity, caused national observers to pay heed to homespun interpretations of juvenile delinquency. The state attracted top experts from the fields of sociology, psychology, and social work, who built up nationally and internationally known academic programs, research foundations, settlement house agencies, and juvenile justice institutions. Texas experts functioned as public intellectuals, circulating a series of narratives and images purporting to explain delinquency. Throughout the postwar era, they engaged multiple publics in discussions of troubled teenagers that prefigured today’s debates over the treatment of violent juvenile offenders and the disproportionate numbers of black and Latino youth in trouble. I demonstrate that research on adolescence and delinquency often sparked larger national arguments about race, poverty, family, and community. The dissertation’s close studies of big-city community youth programs, juvenile justice institutions, and grassroots activism on behalf of incarcerated juveniles seek to relocate teenagers from the periphery to the center of major trends in twentieth century American history. ix Table of Contents List of Tables..........................................................................................................xi List of Figures .......................................................................................................xii Introduction: Death of a Teenager: “Adultified” Adolescents and the Contested Meanings of the American Delinquent.......................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Hidden Adolescent: Representing Youth in American Cultural History.......................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2: Child Mental Health and the Shifting Borders of the American “Youth Problem,” 1933-1969...................................................................... 32 Chapter 3: The Urban Ghetto as a Reform School: From Settlement House to Community Action in Houston, 1943-1967.................................................. 86 Chapter 4: Ministering to “Hurt, Frightened, Children”: The Rise and Fall of the Texas Youth Council, 1949-1971 ......................................................... 149 Chapter 5: Identity Crisis, Identity Politics: Creating a “Right” to Adolescence, 1971-1988............................................................................. 208 Chapter 6: Reclaiming Adolescence: Kids in Court Today................................. 264 Bibliography........................................................................................................ 275 Vita 292 x List of Tables Table 1: Male Juvenile Inmates by Race and Ethnicity, 1958-1973................... 186 Table 2: Gainesville Inmates by Race and Ethnicity, 1968-1974 ....................... 255 xi List of Figures Figure 1: Looking inward at a segregated Civilian