History 476

20^th Century Youth Culture

Devine

STUDY QUESTIONS: COLLEGE YOUTH, 1900-1930

Wechsler, Revolt on Campus

1. According to Wechsler’s Revolt on Campus, how did the attitudes of college students toward war change between the U.S. entry into World War I and the end of the war?

2. What forms did student rebellion take during the 1920s? What, if any, goals did the rebels espouse?

3. What did the radical or rebellious students find most disturbing about American society during the 1920s?

4. How did the prosperity or “boom” of the 1920s affect the attitudes and behavior of college students? By 1925, why had student radicals become frustrated?

5. Why did the journalist H.L. Mencken become influential among middle-class college rebels? Was Mencken’s social criticism “radical”?

6. According to Wechsler, how did the emergence of “King Football” affect the spirit of rebellion on campus?

Sheean, “The Modern Gothic”

1. What impression of college life does Vincent Sheean provide in his memoir? What seem to be the students’ priorities and governing values? In retrospect, what does Sheean seem to think of his fellow students?

2. The 1920s are often portrayed as a period of cultural liberation and growing tolerance, particularly among youth. To what extent does Sheean’s description of the University of Chicago campus support or undermine this portrait?

3. How did life on campus differ depending on whether you were a “Greek,” a “barb,” a ”grinder,” or in the Poetry Club?

4. How does Sheean assess the education he got at the University of Chicago?

5. How do Wechsler and Sheean’s memoirs complicate common stereotypes about 1920s “flaming youth”?

Gordon, “The Gibson Girl Goes to College”

1. Prior to the Progressive Era, what kinds of objections were raised about women going to College?

2. How did the popular image of the “Gibson girl” as “College girl” allay public concerns about women attending college? In what ways did this image distort reality?

3. Why did some support a “women’s curriculum” while others opposed it? What purpose did it seem to serve?

4. What messages and “lessons” about proper gender roles did mass magazines convey in their stories about College girls?

5. What was the relationship between magazine articles about “College girls” and societal fears about the “New Woman”? How did these articles help to “contain” such fears?

6. How did the image of the Gibson girl both facilitate growing acceptance of educated women but also reinforce (rather than challenge) traditional gender roles?

Clarke, “Athletes and Frats, Romance and Rowdies”

1. How were the changing purpose of college and the changing image of the “College man” related?

2. What social, economic, and cultural factors were undermining traditional notions of the “self-made man” at the turn of the twentieth century? What activities and institutions allowed men to bridge the gap between traditional and modern conceptions of masculinity?

3. According to Clarke, why was College the “perfect site” to reshape masculine identity? How did popular magazines depict this new identity?

4. How did athletics, particularly football, enable College men to blend their “primitive” and “civilized” sides? Why was such a combination considered “ideal” during this period?

5. How did James Hopper’s football stories reassure a professional male audience that was grappling with the social changes brought on by industrialization and the rise of the big corporation?

6. How did magazine profiles of Presidents and other politicians reflect the shifting image of the “College man”? How did Theodore Roosevelt embody the ideal combination of qualities expected in the ideal “College man”?

7. How does the idealized character of “Duggie,” captain of the football team, compare to the real “College men” that Wechsler and Sheean describe?

8. How did popular magazines play a crucial role in changing public perceptions of college life and in refashioning middle-class male identity?