Teenagers Didn't Always Exist

So where were those angsty kids?

Mar 16, 2023

In an unreleased version of Bruce Springsteen’s classic “Glory Days,” he adds an extra verse about how his father never had glory days. We’re lucky he left out this verse. It’s not very good.

My old man worked 20 years on the line,
And they let him go.
Now everywhere he goes out looking for work
They just tell him that he's too old.
I was 9 nine years old and he was working at the
Metuchen ford plant assembly line.
Now he just sits on a stool down at the legion hall
But I can tell what's on his mind.

Glory days, yeah, going back
Glory days, aw he ain't never had
Glory days, glory days

Springsteen’s concept of “glory days” are tied to the carefree nature of your teenage years (e.g., “Well there's a girl that lives up the block / Back in school she could turn all the boys’ heads.”) Why did his father not have glory days of his own?

In his autobiography, Springsteen notes that his father struggled with schizophrenia, among other issues. It’s possible that his mental health impeded him from having a typical teenage experience. But there’s an alternate explanation. Maybe Douglas Springsteen was never a teenager.

Humanity’s Pre-Teen Years

From music to movies, the idea of being a teenager is so baked into youth culture that it’s easy to imagine a 14-year-old Neanderthal complaining to his parents about how they won’t let him leave the cave after dark. That said, the idea that the ages from 13 to 19 connote a distinct phase of life is a relatively recent phenomenon.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary notes that the word “teenager” was not used in its modern sense until 1913. That’s the same year “jazz,” “touch football,” and “Federal Reserve Bank” were each used for the first time.

Google also has a tool that allows you to see the relative occurrences of a word across a giant corpus of text between 1800 and 2019. Using this data, we can again get a sense for how new teenagers are.

In the 1940s, we see some usage of the term “teen-ager.” That is quickly supplanted by the non-hyphenated (and more contemporary) “teenager” during the 1950s and 1960s. This suggests an important question: Why weren’t there teenagers before 1900?

Of course, there are a few reasons. Some people point to the post-WWII economic boom that left young people with more disposable income. Others point to the proliferation of the automobile, which gave young people additional freedom. But I don’t think either of these is the most important factor.

In Kelly Schrum’s book Some Wore Bobby Sox: The Emergency of Teenage Girls’ Culture, 1920-1945, she notes that despite the fact that the term “teenager” became commonplace after WWII, the seeds of the concept were sown during the 1920s and 1930s. Furthermore, according to the paper “Household Appliances and the Use of Time: The United States and Britain Since the 1920s,” it took until 1960 for 75% of U.S. households to have an automobile. That’s a bit too late to account for the teenage boom. Given these facts, I think it mostly comes down to compulsory education.

In 1890, less than 10% of Americans aged 14-17 were enrolled in high school. By 1930, that percentage had risen to 50%. By 1950, it was closing in on 80%. Because of this, people in their teen years were now spending more time together than ever before. This made it possible for teens to develop their own language and culture. It also made it possible for businesses to make music, movies, and products specifically for teens.

While nostalgia has always existed, compulsory education gave birth to the specific shade of nostalgia that underpins Springsteen’s “Glory Days.” His father may have been born a bit too early to truly experience the now ubiquitous phenomenon.

A New One
"Hell is a Teenage Girl" by Hannah Grae
2023 - Indie Rock

From sock hops of the 1950s to TikTok of the 2020s, musicians are still singing about teenagers. Hannah Grae, who built a following on the aforementioned social media platform over the last few years, uses this track to highlight the anxiety that can often be coupled with your high school years.

The song begins with a whisper, Grae singing over a waltzing acoustic guitar. Then about two minutes in she can’t contain it anymore. An electrified band charges in as she belts out her angsty pledge of allegiance: “All rise, girls with the pink jackets / All sigh, the boss is back at it / Ask why no one is asking it / You look the god damn same.”

An Old One
"Teen Age Idol" by Ricky Nelson
1962 - Acoustic Pop

If you needed further proof that the word “teenage” isn’t that old, note that Ricky Nelson and his collaborators broke the word in two (i.e., “teen” and “age”) on this top 5 hit from 1962.

Nelson was wildly popular in the 1950s. In fact, the only male artists with a similar level of popularity at that time were probably Elvis Presley and Pat Boone. Though the sands of time have washed away much of his influence, his voice can still stop you dead in your tracks if it catches you at the right moment. And that’s what it does to me on this track, a somber dirge about the perils of fame.

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