High School Women of 1958
March 28, 2017
A READER has informed me that this photo I posted with a brief entry on college women of yesteryear is not a photo of women in college at all.
It is a photo of women in high school, from the 1958 graduating class of Upper Darby High School outside Philadelphia.
Wow, pause for a moment and reflect on this astounding glimpse into the past. Judging by appearances, these are mature women prepared for real life, not children prepared for another phase of extended childhood.
Some of these young women are very beautiful. They have movie star looks. But notice how the ones who have humbler looks are beautified and even ennobled by their dignified dress and charming modesty. Styles of today are, in contrast, especially unkind to women not endowed with great looks. By the way, Upper Darby was not a wealthy town. These are middle-class students. Thanks, feminism! Thanks all you pink-hatted gripe artists! Thanks for destroying the beauty, purpose and nobility of femininity!
— Comments —
S.K. writes:
Regarding the photo you posted along with your post on “High School Women,” I would have to say those girls look absolutely delightful. That is not to say they did not possess negative qualities, were immune to either temptation or sin, or any such thing. But they looked like real, solid women, with more virtues than faults. Any one of them would do for a wife. I don’t know what became of them, and maybe a few became “liberated” or hippies ten years from that photo, but that slice of time, their image together, really is rather heart-warming. For younger folks like myself, that photo depicts something we’ve never known, but instinctively are drawn to.
Contrast that photo with what we were handed as “better” (language warning).
March 30, 2017
Alan Alexis writes:
To my ‘born in 1963 eyes’ none of these women are very attractive. However, what is clearly visible in all of them is that 1958, at 17,18,or 19 years of age, every one of them is a woman, not a girl, far more mature in attitude, outlook and bearing than today’s equivalent women. I’m sure they could “act” girlish on occasion, but these were women, mostly ready to step into their roles in society. They usual caveats apply. They had the same fears, weaknesses, and questions, that all young people of that age have.
But the world they lived in prepared them far better than today’s youth to face these challenges. Home-Ec classes, family training, and the culture were in many ways for more supportive than todays “Enlightened Culture” will be.
They had strengths that are denied most of today’s youth.
S.K. writes:
Sorry about the bad language in that photo of the girl, I didn’t know you’d post it. Either way though, it depicts the total cluelessness and crassness of even such an aesthetically pleasing creature. I would add only that, in past generations, a similar whore would have the sense and savvy to not tell anyone at all about their private peccadilloes and even to display virtue publicly. These women now are actually oblivious as to why that is a bad strategy for attaining what she claims to want. She is somewhat ‘innocent’ in her whoredom.
