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Girls "In Trouble": A History Of Female Adolescent Sexuality In The Midwest, 1946-1964, Charissa Keup

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation attempts to show how Americans reacted to adolescent female sexuality, looking specifically at unwed school-age pregnancy in the post-World War Two decades. It documents the origins of the transition of the conversation about unwed teens from caring for them in maternity homes and boarding houses to discussing their problems on television shows and in popular magazines. Teenage sexual delinquency and pregnancy have always raised innumerable questions about American culture and values. Because they challenged the traditional concept of motherhood, they offer a lens through which to study American sexuality and reveal that an alternate 1950s existed beyond the …