From private to public? Changing perceptions of young women in Seventeen magazine, 1955–1965

As a form of popular culture, magazines provide a lens through which historians can examine the dominant attitudes and values of a society. This article examines the portrayal of young American women in the popular teen magazine, Seventeen magazine, during the period 1955–1965. The study documents and analyses the messages conveyed within the magazine regarding ideals concerning feminine behaviour and appearance. Seventeen provides an opportunity to investigate both the production and reception of the cultural ideals for young American women as the decade of the 1950s ends and that of the 1960s begins. I argue that the letters-to-the-editor represented a public platform in which readers could voice opinions, express identities, engage in debates and communicate with each other. In this way, it is possible to see a change in the framing of women’s roles over time; a change that occurred not via a purely ‘top-down’ processes, but via and exchange relationship between Editors, writers and readers, and indeed between the readers themselves