Teenage New Jersey, 1941-1975

This collection of essays is one of the first comprehensive studies of the emergence of teenagers as an independent sector of society, alienated from the adult world and in pursuit of their own life-style. Teenage New Jersey explores the origins of this phenomenon during the Depression, when the scarcity of jobs forced an increasing number of teens into school, and through the World War II years, when teens acquired additional responsibilities and their own sources of income. The postwar suburban explosion, increasing affluence, and the changing racial composition of high schools pushed teens further from the older generation's values and led them to forge a unity of their own. Contributors to the volume examine the identities assumed by teenagers during the 1950s and 1960s when music (Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, the Beatles), movies (Rebel Without a Cause), and mobility influenced their lives. Ignored and condemned, alienated and defiant, New Jersey teenagers have been both the cause and result of societal and cultural changes. This is their story.

Teenage New Jersey was produced to complement the inaugural exhibition mounted in the new headquarters of the New Jersey Historical Society.