Inspiration for New Year’s Resolutions from Teens of the Past

Happy New Year! Has anyone asked you if you’ve made a New Year’s resolution? The turn of the calendar page provides a blank slate: what can you accomplish in the next twelve months? What can you build upon or change? Is there anything you’d like to stop doing? Resolutions can be practical (I plan on making my bed every morning) or aspirational (I’d like to be more patient with my friends). As I contemplated the annual tradition of making a New Year’s resolution, I wondered if kids and teens in the past made similar promises to themselves. To find the voices of young people from long ago, I turned to the newspapers in the Library’s Chronicling America digital collection. If you’re still brainstorming a resolution, maybe these articles will inspire your next goal!

One of the first sets of resolutions I found came from the Camp Fire Girls, a scout organization, in an article published on December 24, 1924. This piece highlighted a series of commitments written by a group of scouts from New York and then shared with others in their organization. This list shared practical goals for good manners and learning new skills:

Other youth organizations also made group declarations, like the Mt. Pleasant High School basketball team from Quincy, Florida. Mt. Pleasant High School in 1939 was all in on pledges for the upcoming year; their principal challenged the student body to a New Year’s resolution contest. The student who wrote the “ten best New Year Resolutions” was promised an award of fifty cents. Later columns neglected to announce the winning entry, so we’ll have to come up with our own. What ten resolutions would you write?

In the column describing the contest, the Mt. Pleasant High School basketball team shared their resolution to win more than half of their upcoming games:

The team had a winning record of 5 – 4 prior to the holiday break, and later newspaper articles show them working hard to fulfill their promise. On January 19^th, the newspaper reported that the Dragons had won two out of three games played the prior week. Although no final record was printed, the team attended the district tournament at the end of the basketball season.

Almost twenty years later, other Floridian students shared their resolutions for the New Year:

Although these goals were published almost seventy years ago, some of them still sound like promises that could be made today. For example, Iris Auvil’s resolution to get more sleep so she wouldn’t be tired at school is likely relatable for many. In the same column, Sylvia Saddler commits to not fighting with “Rodger” anymore. Sylvia’s name appears under the editorial staff for the student columns, but we’ll have to use our imagination for Rodger. Could he have been Sylvia’s brother? Certainly, many siblings can relate to a vow to not pick fights in the upcoming year.

Keeping a New Year’s resolution can be challenging. It’s easy to forget, or be distracted, or make different choices. Newspaper journalists writing for kids and teens recognized this as well. An article in the kids’ section of the Omaha Daily Bee encouraged readers to “try, try again” if they broke their resolutions.

While the Omaha Daily Bee struck a positive tone for their young readers, the Washington, D.C. Evening Star asked the real question of their teenage readers: “What caused you to break your past New Year resolutions?” As with the student journalists in Florida, the D.C. teens had relatable resolutions – and reasons for breaking them. One teenager, Jo Ann Rowe explained that she had successfully fulfilled her pledge to not watch television while doing her homework. Her resolution to save money was a little harder.

Other teens in the same article focused on staying on time. Both Ronald Kotulack and Teresa Brindle described their efforts to not stay out too late and likewise their attempts to be punctual and not oversleep. The results of breaking their resolutions appear different, though. Ronald had given up on making any more commitments, while Teresa promised to try again in the new year. Which option would you take?

Kids and teens in the past made a variety of resolutions and had a wide range of success (or failure) in keeping them. Have any of their commitments inspired you to make your own? Will you focus on learning a new skill, researching a new subject, or achieving a new goal? Whatever you choose, if anything, the Library of Congress may have a digital collection for you.

If you want to discover more about American history during the country’s 250^th birthday year, check out these collections:

• Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827
• Alexander Hamilton Papers
• George Washington Papers
• Documents from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 1774 to 1789

If you want to learn or practice a new artistic skill, you may be interested in these resources:

• An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490 to 1920
• Early American Sheet Music

If you need help with on your science assignments, explore this material from famous inventors and astronomists:

• Samuel F. B. Morse Papers at the Library of Congress, 1793 to 1919
• Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers at the Library of Congress
• Finding Our Place in the Cosmos: From Galileo to Sagan and Beyond

If you can’t help but watch TV while you do your homework, you may choose to pull up some videos from these collections:

• Selections from the National Film Registry
• Inventing Entertainment: The Early Motion Pictures and Sound Recordings of the Edison Companies
• Event Videos

If nothing else, many of us can promise to keep the resolution Ballard’s Ice Cream suggested in 1921. Happy New Year!