University of Texas Press Designing the Teenage Girl: The Debut of a Popular Character

Explores the forgotten first wave of American teen-girl entertainment from the late 1920s through the early 1950s. During the mid-twentieth century, American entertainment featuring teenage girls blossomed. From short stories to plays, films, comics, radio programs, and television shows, writers and other creative professionals developed a new character type that helped to define midcentury girlhood and teen culture. Designing the Teenage Girl uncovers the largely forgotten first wave of US teen-girl entertainment, tracing its emergence in the 1920s through a thirty-year production cycle that spanned all sectors of American popular culture. Beginning with short stories such as Sally Benson's Junior Miss and following their adaptations, Kearney reveals how teen-girl narratives circulated across industries. Drawing on archival research and analysis of visual, narrative, and sound design, Kearney situates these texts within the identity politics of the period. While midcentury teen-girl entertainment privileged white, middle-class femininity, it also contained alternative visions of girlhood that complicated heteronormative and patriarchal expectations. This study reframes the origins of teen-girl entertainment and demonstrates how its aesthetic strategies and industrial practices continue to shape representations of girlhood today.