Dating, Dancing, and Riding in Cars
A Scrapbook Archive of Teen Culture in the 1930s
Selecting artifacts for this archive was a lengthy process, largely guided by my narrativation of Jane’s life (and teen culture in general). While a comprehensive archive of all artifacts contained within Jane's scrapbook would have its advantages, an abridged archive allows for greater efficiency and economy for both the editor and the reader. One of the greatest advantages of digital archives is that they are more adaptable to alteration and expansion than physical archival work. In the future, with more time, I would ideally like to broaden the scope of this archive to include a more comprehensive collection of Jane’s scrapbook artifacts. For this archive, however, I focused on selecting artifacts that produce significant revelations about teen culture in America when placed in proximity to one another.
I selected a small number of artifacts from Jane’s scrapbook with the objective of adequately representing Jane’s social life during the years that she attended the Appalachian State Teachers College (ASTC) (1933-1935). My goal was to select artifacts that cover a wide range of the characteristics of teen culture in the 1930s. The selection process began with a cataloguing of all items within the scrapbook. Items were sorted into the following categories:
Newspaper clippings
These are most often blurbs about social events that Jane attended, wedding announcements, and advice columns directed toward teen girls.
Programs
Programs are typically from school band and choral recitals, theater productions, and motion pictures.
Tickets
These are admissions tickets to school events like basketball games, dining hall meals, and proms.
Nonverbal artifacts
Nonverbal artifacts — artifacts that are primarily visual and tactile, though they often include short inscriptions — include, among other items, disposable wooden spoons from drugstores, napkins, doilies, and plastic cups. Jane collected most of these items from social events like parties or school banquets.
Official documents
These are receipts for tuition payments, report cards, and school-issued handbooks and notifications.
Letters
Letters are primarily from friends and family members. They are written in standard letter style and format, and they are often accompanied by an envelope.
Scrapbook notes
These are both brief and lengthy notes that Jane wrote directly on the pages of the scrapbook. They usually supplement other artifacts, communicating something about the event from which the artifact was obtained.
Photographs
These are small, black-and-white photographs of Jane, her family, and her friends.
Miscellaneous
Some items within the scrapbook did not fit into any of the above categories, but were too few in number to warrant a category of their own. These artifacts include a postcard with a picture of Jane's college dorm, an advertisement for beauty products, and a page of autographs from Jane's classmates.
In selecting items for this archive, those that were not directly related to Jane's social life were ruled out immediately. These items were few, but included tuition payment receipts, letters from family members, photographs of Jane's family, newspaper clippings about Jane's hometown church, and a small number of scrapbook notes that discussed church services, family holidays, and school courses (without mentioning a specific social aspect of those events). While all of these artifacts have socio-historical value, they are not within the limited scope of this archive because they lack an obvious tie to Jane's social life. For this archive, I was solely interested in artifacts indicative of Jane's relationships with her friends and the social activities they enjoyed.
After eliminating non-social artifacts, the remaining artifacts were sorted, counted, and examined closely for their significance to Jane's social life. Artifacts of particular socio-historical significance — such as a newspaper clipping and note regarding Jane's involvement in a mass student strike — were designated for inclusion in the archive. (The student strike documents are of notable importance because they exemplify teens' struggle for social autonomy during the 1930s.)
From the remaining artifacts, a representative portion from each category was selected. At least one item from each category was selected, with the most diverse variety of selections being the goal. I attempted to achieve diversity in this archive in two ways: (1) I selected artifacts from different categories (i.e., a combination of letters, newspaper clippings, visual artifacts, etc.), and (2) I selected artifacts that represent a wide array of teen social activities (e.g., dating, attending athletic events, smoking cigarettes, etc.). This method of selection was employed in order to provide the most accurate portrait of teen culture as a whole, while avoiding excessive inclusion of artifacts of similar significance. In order to determine the importance of certain activities and attitudes in American 1930s teen culture, I consulted a variety of reputable secondary resources. This research is evidenced in the Historical Setting section of this archive, as well as in the contextual notes accompanying exhibits.
Selection of Artifacts for the Archive