Teenagers did not become an acknowledged social group until the 1940s. People between the ages of 13 and 19 did exist, of course, but until World War II, their role in society remained static from childhood to adulthood. They were to contribute labor, and possibly earnings, to the family, attend school to the extent the community felt was necessary, and prepare for an adult role. In the 1940s and 1950s, teenagers became a distinct social group who interested both psychologists and marketers of merchandise and the entertainment industry. With so much attention, they became the focus of social life in the 1950s. Despite all that attention, the basic interests of teenagers have changed little since Mae Roberts and Dorry Shaw kept diaries.
The diaries in this section were written by two teenagers who lived about one generation apart. Though each is a brief view of the individual’s private thoughts and daily life, we can get a sense of how they saw themselves in relation to their parents, siblings, friends, and community. The diary as a form of literature has been studied extensively by historians, literary scholars, and psychologists. A diary offers a firsthand look at one person’s life, and at public events of his or her time. These two diaries also give us an insider’s view of two North Dakota communities. Mae Roberts’ Devils Lake was in its early settlement phase. Many of their friends are newcomers like the Roberts family and farming was central to their lives. More than thirty years later, Dorry Shaw showed us Enderlin just after World War I in a town whose main industry is the railroad.
What kind of information are you, your friends, and your family comfortable sharing in diaries, letters, photographs, and different social media platforms? How do you control what gets shared and who has access to it? Facilitate a class discussion about how personal and family stories are told and shared and how that has been impacted by social media. The work of historians relies a lot on people who have shared their own personal papers, or the personal papers of deceased family members. Materials like letters, diaries, photographs, and other family records make up a significant amount of typical archival collections. Some of those records come with restrictions for various reasons. For example, a donor may request that everyone mentioned in a series of letters must be deceased before those letters can be opened for research. Modern technology is changing how people create and share personal information. Instead of writing in a journal, many people now post their feelings and memories to Facebook or Twitter. What impact will this change have on future historians and the research they do to understand a particular time period? Would you be comfortable knowing future historians might have access to your Instagram account? What happens to all of a person’s content when a platform is no longer used or shut down like MySpace or Googgle+?