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Black and White photo of 4 young women with dark hair in winter coats and boots. They are walking down the street with ice skates slung over their shoulders and looking off into the distance. Behind them are signs for Chinese businesses and a van with Chinese characters.
Four young women walking down a street holding ice skates. (Prints and Photographs Division)

Teenagers at Work and Play

Posted by: Jennifer Ezell

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This post was written by Georgina (Gigi) Broyles, a 2024 Junior Fellow in the Library of Congress’ Informal Learning Office. Gigi is a graduate student studying library and information science at the University of Michigan School of Information.

Who do you picture when you hear the word teenager? As a teen librarian, the faces of the many teens who rushed to my library every week flood my mind. This summer I completed a Junior Fellowship where I had the opportunity to work with 12 more extraordinary teens enrolled in the Library of Congress’ High School Summer Internship program. Seeing the Library of Congress through their eyes made me curious about when and where we can find records of teenagers in the Library’s collections.

The earliest use of the term “teen age” that I found in Chronicling America, the Library of Congress’ database of digitized historical newspapers, appears in a Washington D.C. newspaper story about a ball put on in February of 1897. This primary source surprised me, as I thought the term came into use later in the 20th century. This got me thinking, what other traces of teens could I find in the Library’s collections? The answer is, quite a lot! Come with me on a journey through how teens worked, played, and influenced their worlds, as documented by the Library of Congress.

Teens Work Hard

The 12 teens who participated in this year’s internship program volunteer so diligently all summer made me curious about other types of work did teens did, so that is where I started my research.

School

A young woman sits at a desk with books open in front of her. She is drawing on a loose piece of paper, sketching an insect.
A high school student sitting at a school desk sketching a diagram of an insect. (Prints and Photographs Division)

As I’m sure many teenagers would agree, school is a lot of work! This photo shows a high school student drawing a diagram of an insect in biology class, which was one of my favorite subjects in school. I am impressed by this student’s drawing skills. I wonder how she felt about biology class and whether sketching insects gave her a new appreciation for them.

Farming

Seven teenage boys stand on a machine in a field. They travel down a road with stalks of corn on their left. They are standing on boards and dressed in t-shirts and pants, or overalls.
Seven teenage farm workers operating a piece of farm equipment next to a field of corn. (Prints and Photographs Division)

This photo of teenage farm workers in Iowa from 1948 shows seven teens piloting a contraption called a corn detasseller. What would you assume this machine is used for based on what you see in the image? Read the item record to check your guess.

Nursing

A nurse pours a drink for a woman laying in a hospital bed. There are two empty beds next to her and crutches leaning at the foot of the bed. Near the head of the bed is a bouquet of flowers.
High school student Eleanor Jefferis pouring a drink for a person laying in a bed while working as a nurse’s aide. (Prints and Photographs Division)

Teens held other types of jobs too! One D.C. high school student named Eleanor Jefferis worked as a nurse’s aide in a hospital in 1943. The item record for this photograph tells me she worked eight hour shifts six days a week during the summer. After seeing this photo, I wondered if Eleanor grew up to be a nurse in a hospital. Searching the primary sources in Chronicling America reveals that she did!

Retail

Two round tables sit in a room. Each table has an adult interviewing a teenager, whose back is to the camera. Behind the tables is a wall that says "Job Opportunities at Woodward and Lathrop." On the side of the room are two chairs facing the tables in the room. A young woman sits in one chair holding a paper.
Two adults interviewing two high school seniors for a job while a third student sits and waits. (Prints and Photographs Division)

In this photo we can see teens interviewing for jobs at a department store chain, similar to the retail job I worked as a teen. The item record told me that this photo was taken at an event where high school seniors could interview for jobs at this company. Look at what the teens are wearing and holding. How do you think they prepared for this job interview?

Teens Have Fun

Don’t worry, there’s more to the teenage experience than work. The Library’s collections contain plenty of evidence of teenagers having fun, too!

Driving

A young man in a button-down shirt drives a young woman in a dark convertible car with the top down. Behind them people are walking on a street in front of a well lit building. The young couple in he car are smiling, with the girl looking at the boy.
A teenager driving a convertible car while another teenager rides in the passenger seat. (Prints and Photographs Division)

This photo of two teenagers enjoying a car ride reminded me of when I got my driver’s license after I turned 16. These teens are laughing and smiling at each other while they drive. Take a closer look at the photograph. How do you think the teens are feeling based on their expressions? Where do you think they are going? Does the way that they are dressed or the background of the photograph give you any clues?

Hobbies

The Library’s collections also allow us to hear about the lives of teens in their own words. This conversation with a 13-year-old boy from Detroit recorded in 1967 holds a lot of information about his hobbies. The interview begins at 00:12 with the boy discussing how he builds and drives model cars. There were a couple of surprise personal connections in this interview that connected me to this teen more than five decades later. He discusses going to watch local sports teams at 09:03. Then at 11:15, he mentions fishing in the lake that I recognized. Around 16:20 I learned he attended the middle school attached to the church where my grandparents got married!

The American Folklife Center has research guides for different states and regions to help you find your own local connections to the Library’s collections. To hear more teen experiences in their own words, explore the audio recordings from the Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America Project, or these recordings of high school students’ book reports.

Sports

An adult woman in a dark dress with sleeves holds a basketball between two younger women in dresses who have their hands raised. The adult is facing and speaking to one of the young women. In the background are several other young women in dresses watching the three women in the center of the photo.
Two teenagers wait with their hands in the air while an adult prepares to toss a jump ball. (Prints and Photographs Division)

This photo that depicts two girls getting ready for a jump ball reminded me of my time playing basketball in high school. I noticed that several of the people in this photo are smiling. I wonder what the recreational director said to make everyone smile.

Technology

Six young people sit around a table. They each wear metal headphones with wires going towards the center of the table. They are all writing on papers held in front of them. In the background, the room's walls are decorated with a flat map of the world, an advertisement for a "Music Ride" with a horse, and other photos.
A group of six teenagers sitting around a table writing while wearing radio headsets. (Prints and Photographs Division)

The teenagers gathered around this table are participating in a jamming contest, where they competed to see who could transmit radio messages with the fewest number of errors. From the item record I learned that B.B. Jackson, the teen on the far left, won the contest. Radio broadcasts were still a relatively new technology when this photo was taken in 1921. Take another look at the photo. Does it remind you of any games or contests teens today might participate in? Why might these teens have been interested in learning about radio technology?

Music

Six teenagers, both men and women, stand by a record store display. Two girls on the right, in dresses and blouses are speaking to each other. The rest of the teenagers are looking at records and disks. On the wall hand record sleeves, a top ten list of songs, and a sign that says "Records."
Six teenagers browsing music records in a shop. (Prints and Photographs Division)

These teenagers are browsing records at a music store. One of the reasons I found this photograph interesting is because we can see a list of popular songs on the wall behind them. Take a closer look at the songs on the sign. Have you heard of any of them? Two of these songs, “Baby Love” by the Supremes and “That’s What Love is Made Of” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, are from Motown artists. Motown and its subsidiary Tamla records were groundbreaking record labels based in Detroit. Smokey Robinson won the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song in 2016. His song “The Tracks of My Tears” and another song on this list “Oh, Pretty Woman” by Roy Orbison, were both inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2007. You can learn more about Smokey Robinson’s career and time at Motown in an interview with him in the Library’s Joe Smith collection.

Teenagers Influence the Library of Congress

While there are a few different ways for teens to volunteer at the Library of Congress, this summer I worked with the 12 teens who participated in this year’s internship program. The teens worked hard all summer to create blog posts and gallery talks based on the Collecting Memories exhibit on display in the new David M. Rubenstein Treasures Gallery. This project allows the teens’ voices to become permanent additions to the Library’s collections and forges a closer connection between the nation’s library and its next generation of users.

My primary responsibility was creating and leading short educational activities to help the teens learn how to research the Library’s large and diverse collections. My favorite activity I created asked teens to look at this section of a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The teens first studied the landmarks depicted on the Sanborn map, then tried to match a street or landmark to modern Pittsburgh using online satellite maps. We even made some collections connections to a hotel and department store depicted on the map.

A multi-colored flat map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1905. This map shows the outline of buildings colored pink, tan, and yellow.
A portion of a Sanborn Company Fire Insurance Map from 1905 depicting an area of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania between Liberty Avenue and Duquesne Way. (Geography and Map Division)

Other highlights included deciphering Rosa Park’s cursive handwriting from the Manuscript Division, exploring primary sources through Chronicling America’s data visualizations, and remixing audio history using Citizen DJ.

The teens in this year’s cohort continually impressed me with their expressive writing and thoughtful questions. They inspired me with their infectious humor and determination to create a lasting positive impact. Over the next few months, the teens will share their projects here on Minerva’s Kaleidoscope, so make sure to stay tuned! I hope you enjoy learning about their projects as much as I enjoyed watching them develop.

To engage your children and teens in an exploration of teens at the Library of Congress, try the following activities and visit these resources.

Activity

  • Interview a family member about what their life was like as a teenager. Try looking at the photos in this blog to inspire your questions. Some questions to get you started include:
    • Where did you live when you were a teen?
    • Who were your friends? What were they like?
    • What was your first job?
    • What was school like for you?
    • What did you like to do for fun when you were a teenager?
    • What music was popular when you were a teenager?

Additional Resources

  • Watch this video of a Teen Poetry Slam from the 2019 National Book Festival. After you finish watching, check out the lineup of Young Adult authors attending this year’s National Book Festival. All author events will be available online following the festival.
  • Check out these photos from 1979 depicting teens creating something out of papier mâché and having fun. Look at the materials they’re using in their craft. What do you think the teens are making? Why are they making it?
  • Explore Kids These Days collection of videos from the postwar era created to give teens advice for navigating everything from personal hygiene to family dynamics. After watching a video from this collection, what values do you think it advocates for? How have the values taught to teens changed from the 1950s to the 2020s?
  • Listen to this oral history to hear about a teenager from Tennessee’s encounter with a Big Foot!

Comments (3)

  1. Joanna says:

    Awesome post. Thanks for sharing. I loved learning that the nurse’s aid went on to get her nursing degree!

  2. Jyoshna stoitech says:

    Thanks for sharing your knowledge! Looking forward to your next post.

  3. Tonya says:

    Great post! It’s very informative and interesting. I especially enjoyed the interview with the teen from Detroit.

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