From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America

Dating is something that is so ubiquitous to society that it almost goes unnoticed. Almost everyone has done it with varying amounts of success and if we are lucky it even ends in finding a lifetime partner. But dating like most human institutions is an amorphous idea that has changed with society and the attitudes customs around gender and the proper role of men and women in society. In her book, Baily seeks to trace how this institution has changed over time arguing that to understand dating you also have to understand the changes in the economy and the expected roles of men and women in that changing economy. To take on this vast subject Baily focuses on middle-class cis-gendered white young people during this time period and relies heavily on advice columns college newspapers as well as letters and interviews from young people at the time. She also covers young teens just starting to date to a lesser extent. The main conclusion Baily reaches is that dating changed with changing patterns of consumption which resulted in different expectations of behavior from each partner. An activity originally thought of as courting and centered in the woman's home giving her and her parents more control over the activity would shift outside the home to a more public setting giving more license to the man. As the name suggests this would often lead to fooling around in parked cars which developed their own expectations often putting an undue burden on the lady.The author does a good job of using the sources to tease out the changing attitudes on dating and courtship and while many of the attitude and view on relations between the sexes that she cites seem extremely dated and even dangerous in our time period, the author does a good job of putting them in their proper historical context and the criticism that was leveled at them during that time. I would have liked to see her research expanded out to other groups such as working-class young people and non-white young people but I am not sure the available sources would have allowed this and the author makes clear from the beginning that her study will not cover these topics. As far as I can tell there are not a lot of books on the history of dating but this one is a very good one that is well researched and written and that will hopefully spark more research in this field.

This book represents excellent, perceptive work. It puts in sharp contrast that world of courting in the 30s-60s vis a' vis the current world of social media facilitated relating, hook ups and the like.

good

I appreciate that Bailey mines through a lot of popular culture in describing attitudes about courtship in this book, but I would have liked to have seen more research that delves into the larger trends she touches upon very briefly here. She argues that courtship became seen in economic terms as it went from a private ritual to a public activity-- were there other rituals that followed similar paths? Exactly how influential was Freudian theory on sexuality for the typical college co-ed?I'm particularly interested in the history of the teenager, which this book was mildly helpful for. If you're more interested in gender relations or 20th-century American culture, you may find this work more meaningful.

Bailey does a few things rather well in this book. Courtship and dating makes for an interesting study in the ways in which our culture has changed over the course of the 20th century (although as another reviewer pointed out, an update in which she discusses developments of the 90s would be most welcomed). Her writing is clear, and it's a quick and satisfying read in cultural history. This is one where the title sums up the book nicely, so if you're intrigued, it's probably a good one for you.

I read this as part of my regular research for entries that'll be posted on my blog, [...]This book, by far, is the most informative and well-researched one yet.As I implied in my Review Title, the book is written in a very academic style and abounds in footnotes.

A change of courtship occurred from the 1920s and 1940s was the shift from the girl's household to the vechile and away from the watchful eyes of the community. It was a change from sitting at the parlors at the girl's family. A boy would have to be invited to a girl's house causing the woman to have the authority and control, but those things changed. A boy could not go to a girl's house without her permission, but at times changed the guy began to take the authority from the girl. Dating was what was causing the changes of courtship. It moved the girl and the boy outside the home and created a shift from the parlor at the girl's house. Examples would be the replacing of the girl's house with the car.Bailey's book is great for reading and will take only a day to finish (143 pages). Also, it is a really nice looking book. It covers the roles of consumption and competition in courtship, and the understanding that courtship has changed in American society. I give the book four stars.

Ms Bailey writes of 20th century courtship from the 1920's or so onwards. Discussing those elements that changed social conventions and permissible actions (such as the car) she vividly discusses the evolution of courtship, and with it sexuality throughtout the 20th century. A fun read for kicks, and a fabulous resource for historians researching the evolution in dating.