Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Founded in 1944 by Helen Valentine, Seventeen magazine was the first modern "teen magazine." An immediate success, it became iconic in establishing the tastes and behaviors of successive generation of teen girls covering the last half of the 20th century. Kelley Massoni has written the first cultural history of the origins of Seventeen and its role in shaping the modern teen girl ideal. Using content analysis, interviews, letters, oral histories, and promotional materials, Massoni is able to show how Seventeen helped create the modern concept of "teenager." The early Seventeen provided a generation of thinking young women with information on citizenship and clothing, politics and popularity, adult occupations and adolescent preoccupations, until economic and social forces converged to reshape the magazine toward teen consumerism. A chapter on the 21st century Seventeen brings the story to the present. Fashioning Teenagers will be of interest to students of popular culture, sociology, gender studies, mass media, journalism, business, and American studies.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of Figures and Tables (p. 6)
• Preface (p. 7)
• Introduction Mirror, Mirror, on the wall (p. 17)
• Women's Magazines and the Modern Beauty Mandate
• Chapter 1 The Birth of the Teen Magazine (p. 27)
• Delivering Seventeen Magazine to the U.S. Marketplace
• Chapter 2 Seventeen Magazine at War (p. 49)
• Teena in the World of Opportunity
• Chapter 3 Teena Goes to Market (p. 81)
• Seventeen Magazine Sells the Ideal Consumer to Business
• Chapter 4 Teena Means Business (p. 109)
• Seventeen Magazine's Advertisers Court the Teen Girl Consumer
• Chapter 5 Seventeen Magazine at Peace (p. 141)
• Teena Leaves the World, Enters the Home, and Loses her Mind
• Chapter 6 Divorce in the Family (p. 171)
• Seventeen Magazine Loses its Matriarch-and its Way
• Epilogue Seventeen Magazine and Teena in the Twenty-First Century (p. 193)
• Notes (p. 205)
• References (p. 233)
• Index (p. 245)
• About the Author (p. 255)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Sociologist Massoni (Univ. of Kansas) offers the first book-length study of the most important teen magazine ever. It covers mostly the early years, from the founding of Seventeen in 1944 to the forced resignation of its first editor, Helen Valentine, in early 1950, and much of the book takes the form of a detailed comparison of the magazine's content in 1944/45 and 1949/50. Valentine plays heroine to Walter Annenberg's villain, for it was the famous publisher, Massoni argues, who rejected Valentine's progressive, service vision while erroneously taking credit for coming up with the whole idea. The cultural and social history that underlies the book--e.g., the postwar resurgence of the ideal of domesticity--is well known. Massoni's major themes, including youth consumerism and the construction of the female body by advertisers, will be familiar to readers of Grace Palladino, Teenagers: An American History (1996), and Thomas Hine, The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager (1999). Nonetheless, the details will interest students of youth culture, consumerism, advertising, and postwar gender roles. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. W. Graebner emeritus, SUNY Fredonia