Seventeen: A History of the Transformations of the Magazine in Its Initial Years

by Elizabeth Wickstrom

In the mid-twentieth century, Seventeen was the leading and most influential magazine targeting teenage girls aged thirteen to eighteen. Seventeen's initial success stemmed from the fact that it monopolized the magazine industry geared toward that age group. However, Seventeen would not have existed without its first editor-in-chief, Helen Valentine, and publisher, Walter Annenberg. In early 1944, Walter Annenberg, owner of Triangle Publications, met with Helen Valentine and proposed that she become the editor-in-chief of Stardom, a movie review magazine. Valentine refused and made a counteroffer, affirming that she would take the position at Stardom if she could transform it into a fashion magazine for high school girls instead. Annenberg agreed, and Valentine got to work on Stardom, renaming it Seventeen. The most notable of Valentine's hires was twenty-five-year-old Estelle Ellis, Seventeen's first promotional director and youngest staffer, tasked with convincing businesses to buy advertising space in Seventeen.^[1] In the first year of Seventeen, Ellis became an integral part of the magazine's success by creating and utilizing a fictional promotional persona named Teena.

While many historians discuss the emerging market niche, the teenage consumer market, only a few specifically mention Seventeen. Kelley Massoni is the leading historian on the history of Seventeen, and her research on the subject matter remains the bulk of the current and only information available. The source "'Teena Goes to the Market': Seventeen Magazine and the Early Construction of the Teen Girl (As) Consumer" was part of Massoni's doctoral dissertation and solely focused on "Teena," the fictional promotional girl created and used by Estelle Ellis. Years later, Massoni compiled her research into a book entitled "Fashioning Teenagers: a cultural history of Seventeen magazine," where she dives deeper into Seventeen's origins, the multiple aspects of Teena, and Seventeen's relationship with businesses. As expected, much of the information in these two sources compared with each other as Massoni's book elaborates upon her initial doctoral research. Massoni's predecessor Kelly Schrum also researched Seventeen as seen in the chapter “‘Teena Means Business’ Teenage Girls' Culture and 'Seventeen' Magazine 1944-1950'" within the book "Delinquents & Debutantes: Twentieth Century American Girls' Culture" edited by Sherrie A. Inness. However, while Schrum writes on Seventeen magazine in this instance, as a historian, she specializes in the overarching topic of teenage culture in the twentieth century and rarely wrote about Seventeen outside of this one chapter. Massoni and Shrum write about the fictional marketing persona "Teena" and her impact as a bridge between corporate America and Seventeen's teenage readership. However, Schrum focuses more on Seventeen's desire to shape the morals of teen girls in terms of sexuality and character. Lastly, Mary Celeste Kearney writes in a journal article entitled "Birds on the Wire: Troping teenage girlhood through telephone in mid-twentieth-century US media culture" about the beginnings of the teenage market and the advertisements that pushed teen girls to overuse telephones. The literature of both Massoni and Schrum supports Kearney’s stance on how the post-war era prompted teen consumerism.

World War II played a critical role in the emergence of teenage girls as consumers prompted companies to develop products exclusively for teens and paved the way for Seventeen. Mary Celeste Kearney writes in her journal article that a critical factor in the formation of the teen girl as a consumer was that "... teenage girls of the early 1940s earned considerable disposable income as a result of their participation in the war effort, [and] used their own earnings to support various interests in fashion and entertainment…".^[2] Kelley Massoni elaborates on this idea of the teen girl as a consumer in her book where she writes, "... teen girls were becoming more and more responsible for spending- both their own earnings and the household income. Thus the war gave teenage girls a newfound economic power, both individually and as family managers."^[3] As the spending power of teen girls rose, businesses came to realize the profitability of this group. Thus, clothing companies began to produce fashions specifically for teen girls, stores began carrying these garments, and teen magazines began advertising them.^[4] Such background information on the transition of teen girls as consumers is important because it lays the groundwork for a need of a teen-center magazine like Seventeen.

Seventeen was a trailblazer in teen girl periodicals and underwent significant transformations in advertisement content in the first years of publication. Initially, the magazine was desperate for companies to advertise anything and everything in their magazine to gain financial stability. However, once Seventeen convinced enough businesses to invest in advertising space, the magazine altered the content of its ads to fit the ideals of its leadership and portray a “wholesome” teen girl image. Such advertisement changes are evident from the magazine's first publications between 1944 and 1946.

For Seventeen to succeed as a magazine, they needed to gain financial stability by selling advertisement space in their periodical by providing evidence on the profitability of the teen market and determining who Seventeen’s audience was. Therefore the magazine's staff had to accomplish two things: (1) understand the mind of the American teenage girl, and (2) convince businesses to see the profitability of the teen girl enough to purchase advertising space. Seventeen assigned these two critical tasks to its promotional director Estelle Ellis whose solutions went on to ensure the magazine's future. Ellis' solution to both problems involved surveying Seventeen readers to create a fictional character representing Seventeen's brand. In 1945, a year after its debut publication, Seventeen surveyed its current readers on their activities, finances, and spending habits. Once all the data was collected and organized, Kelley Massoni writes in her dissertation that "Ellis transformed the reader survey statistics into a narrative about the 'average' reader" and created a fictional typical teen reader named "Teena."^[5] In an interview with Ellis later in her life, she discusses Teena's usefulness in selling the "teen image" to prospective advertisers, saying, "You have to humanize, you have to personify. People just don't fall in love with statistics!"^[6] Essentially, Teena worked not only to help Estelle Ellis and the adults at Seventeen understand their readers but also helped to provide an image of a consumer that advertising companies could connect with.

Ellis worked to personify Teena using data gathered from the survey of Seventeen readers; however, she also incorporated the personal ideals of Walter Annenberg and Helen Valentine into Teena as well.  Based on the averages of the data collected, Teena became "16 years old, 5 feet 4 inches tall, 118 pounds, attends public high school, expects to go to college- and then marry and stay home."^[7] Additionally, in promotional materials, Teena is pictured in campaigns as a wholesome, white girl reflecting the ideals of both Annenberg and Valentine. Annenberg wanted Teena to exude wholesomeness, purity, and conservatism to distance himself from the sleazy magazines his father acquired and maintained during his time as owner of Triangle Publications. Thus, Teena was always clean, well-groomed, and wore a dress and little makeup, exuding the three characteristics desired by Annenberg. Additionally, Valentine insisted that Seventeen be a magazine that would "treat readers as 'whole human beings'."^[8] Thus, Ellis made sure to include some articles on non-beauty related topics such as science, politics, and current events because she wanted girls to learn about intellectual topics as well. When it came to Teena, Ellis emphasized that teens had a mind of their own and could persuade parents and peers to follow their choices. From here, Ellis compiled all of her data and personal ideals neatly into an easy-to-read informational pamphlet entitled Life With Teena, featuring a drawing of Teena on the cover, and presented the survey results to prospective advertising businesses.^[9]

In addition, Ellis also launched other promotional campaigns besides the survey to entice corporations into advertising on Seventeen so that the magazine could gain financial stability. One of her strategies was the "calling card" promotion, where Ellis mailed postcards featuring Teena to companies yet to advertise in the magazine. These postcards included slogans that often asserted that teenage girls depended on Seventeen for all product advice. Such postcards included images of Teena reading the magazine and highlighted the idea of attachment and obsession teen girls had with the contents of Seventeen. Several promotional postcards emphasized this notion by drawing Teena reading Seventeen "while ignoring three male suitors who look on…at a school dance…playing in the orchestra, bathing in the tub, and walking in her graduation precession."^[10] These postcards showed Seventeen's supposed influence over the average teenage girl. One of Ellis' more interesting strategies was her "love letters" campaign, where she gathered thank you letters written by satisfied manufacturers who had advertised on Seventeen. Ellis printed these “love letters” on postcards and sent them to companies to convince them of the potential success they could face as a result of advertising on Seventeen.^[11] In the end, Ellis succeeded in achieving Seventeen's main goals. TIDE magazine celebrated Seventeen as "a unique case study" in 1945, writing, "In eight months the teenage magazine's phenomenal growth has earned it an important spot in the ranks of publishing successes."^[12]

Ellis and Teena served their purpose in filling up the magazine’s advertising space, resulting in increased financial stability and the newfound oversight over ads that appeared in the magazine. In its first months of publication, Seventeen was desperate to fill the pages of its magazine and gain the attention of consumers and potential advertisers. Therefore, Seventeen had minimal restrictions on the images of the advertisements in their magazine despite Walter Annenberg's and Helen Valentine's desire to push a wholesome teen girl image. However, as Seventeen gained notoriety, the magazine became overtaken by offers to purchase advertising space. Thus, after its first six months, William A. Rosen, the advertising manager at Seventeen, began to implement an "advertising ceiling" with a maximum set number of advertisements in each issue so that the magazine would have enough space for non-advertisements.^[13]

Once Seventeen successfully convinced businesses to purchase spots in their magazine and established themselves as the leading magazine targeting high school girls, Seventeen became more empowered to alter advertisements that appeared in the magazine. Now that Seventeen secured numerous advertisers, Annenberg and Valentine felt comfortable financially, overseeing more control over the images of the advertisements. To further their unified vision of the "idealized, wholesome girl, who was always white, quiet, and virginal," an advertising advisory board was created to "encourage age-appropriate advertisements and editorial content."^[14] From here, Seventeen quickly censored many advertisements that did not fit into its "wholesome" teen girl image. Revlon's advertisement in the September 1944 issue serves as an example of the change, which features a white woman with blonde hair piled high on her head, a deep neckline, and long pink nails riding a carousel horse. The advertisement promoting Revlon's new pink nail polish called "Pink Garter" states, "Now your lips and nails are tantalizingly pink…yes, pink, against your deep end-of-summer tan!" which can imply a sexual innuendo.^[15] A year later, in September of 1945, a Revlon advertisement appeared in Seventeen featuring a young girl wearing a below-the-knee dress showing her painted nails to the reader using Revlon nail polish. Behind the girl is another girl lying on the floor, wearing a school uniform and reading a book while she eats an apple.^[16]

Another striking example of the sudden shift in content is Pepsi-Cola's change in advertisement imagery from the November 1944 issue to the November 1945 issue. In the 1944 ad, a female news reporter sits in a dressing room while a blonde-haired woman sips a Pepsi-Cola. The blonde-haired woman wears heavy makeup, a strapless bra, and a skirt. The caption at the bottom of the ad states, "And I see what your hobby is," with the word "see" underlined, suggesting its emphasis.^[17] However, the November 1945 advertisement shows a young woman wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt as she walks while drinking a Pepsi-Cola. A young man watches her as she walks past him, and the advertisement is captioned "STARLET" in all capital letters.^[18] These two ads show that Pepsi-Cola's intention for both centers around the concept of Pepsi-Cola's association with a starlet. In the first advertisement, a starlet was conveyed literally. In contrast, the second advertisement directly states the word starlet but leaves more room for interpretation and pictures a woman in more modest clothing. As Seventeen grew more powerful in the teen girl magazine market, Estelle Ellis convinced businesses to "invest money into redesigning their advertisements or creating entirely new campaigns" just for Seventeen.^[19] These new advertisements, of course, followed Seventeen's new "wholesome" criteria.

In conclusion, Seventeen's first several years in circulation depict a transformation from a magazine with unrestricted advertisements in its magazine to an empowered periodical that limits and controls what is published on its platform. Seventeen also had to discover the mind of the American teen girl through statistical analysis and to prove the profitability of its readership to businesses that could invest in advertising space. As the amount of business advertising in Seventeen increased, so did Seventeen's power to control the contents of the advertisements in its magazine. Furthermore, Kelly Schrum in Delinquents & Debutantes best summarizes Seventeen's role in its relationship with businesses and readers when she writes, "As Seventeen negotiated with advertisers, it also negotiated with readers, responding to them but ultimately controlling the final product."^[20]

^[1] Kelly Massoni, “Fashioning Teenagers a cultural history of Seventeen magazine” (California: Left Coast Press, 2010), 42.

^[2] Mary Celeste Kearney, “Birds On the Wire,” Cultural Studies, 19, no. 5 (2005): 573, 10.1080/09502380500365499.

^[3] Massoni, Fashioning Teenagers, 30.

^[4] Massoni, Fashioning Teenagers, 31.

^[5] Kelly Massoni, “Teena Goes To Market,”Journal of American Culture 29, no. 1 (2006): 33,10.1111/j.1542-734X.2006.00273.x. 

^[6] Massoni, Teena Goes to Market, 33.

^[7] Massoni, Teena Goes to Market, 33.

^[8] Ibid., 33

^[9] Benson & Benson, “Life with Teena.”

^[10] Massoni, Teena Goes to Market, 35.

^[11] Kelly Schrum, “Teena Means Business” in Delinquents & Debutantes, ed. Sherrie A. Inness, Twentieth-century American Girls' Cultures. New York: New York University Press, 1998,  142.

^[12] “Seventeen: A Unique Case Study,” TIDE magazine, 19.

^[13] Ibid., 20.

^[14] Schrum, Teena Means Business, 144.

^[15] “Advertisement: Revlon,” Seventeen.

^[16] “Advertisement: Revlon,” Seventeen.

^[17] "Advertisement: Pepsi-Cola Company." Seventeen

^[18] "Advertisement: PEPSI-COLA," Seventeen.

^[19]  Schrum, Teena Means Business, 146.

^[20] Ibid., 149.