ABSTRACT
Youth and consumption are interlinked histories in the 1950s and 1960s. Photography is a particularly useful lens for exploring the consumer perspectives of middle-class girls in the 1950s and 1960s. Elizabeth’s college photos, taken in 1956–7, reveal the possibilities of photography to assert her identity and autonomy. The photos appear in an album compiled around the time she went to university in 1960. Elizabeth’s college photos hint at the tension between freedom of expression and regulation that characterized her life at this time. The staging, captioning and composition of the photos suggest Elizabeth was constructing herself as a rebel, if only symbolically. Elizabeth drew on popular and commercial culture for inspiration. Because of their gender and upbringing, Elizabeth and Irene had less scope for ‘deviant’ self-fashioning than Bailey, but their photographic practices illuminate the subtle and fleeting aspects of their adolescent bricolage.
