In the early 1940s, Hitler was busy trampling Europe underfoot but over in America there was a different kind of terror that was threatening the nation. A moral panic that moved quickly from state to state spread, not by the march of the jackboot, but the pitter-patter of the bowling shoe!
The rebellious teen tribe known as the bobby-soxers was on the rise. Their crimes were too numerous to mention but close analysis of the films of the period reveal that some of the most common included:
- Using slang
- Laziness
- Over the top emotions
- Careless use of the telephone
- Dancing to swing and big band music
America had invented the teenager and the guardians of traditional family values promptly came up with an invention of their own:
The Teen Spanking!
Educational insititutions were taking no chances either. In Utah, a brand new intake of college freshers turned up wearing the bobby soxer uniform of sweaters, skirts and ankle socks with bowling shoes. They were lined up and paddled in public as a deterrent. Better to be safe than sorry.
The power of the press was employed to try and suppress bobby soxer rebellions wherever they broke out. The dreaded saddle shoe is clearly visible in this still of Betty Lynn being spanked with a newspaper from the film June Bride (1948). In the same year, Betty played another bratty bobby soxer in Sitting Pretty and was threatened with a bottom-warming in that too.
I spotted a very similar scene in Harry’s post on the popular high school stage play Men are Like Streetcars. It tells the story of naughty Maudie Mason a character whose roots lie in the bobbysoxer era even though the play was still being performed into the 1970s.
Soon even rural areas of the country were being defended with necessary force. This is one backwoods bobby soxer who won’t be commiting any of those top 5 sins again in a hurry!
Shockingly, even the all American sweetheart and child star Shirley Temple grew up to be a bobby soxer. See her threatened with a spanking here.
Bobby soxer demigogues included the likes of Frank Sinatra and the less well known, but equally dangerous, Van Johnson. How many teenage girls fantasised about being in the position of June Allyson in the film Too Young to Kiss? Draped across Johnson’s knee, she is undergoing some much needed correction from her leader.
Unfortunately for the bobbysoxers, the authorities were able to exploit a vulnerability in their fashionable attire. Those “poodle” style skirts were just asking to be hoiked up!
While there is little authentic picture evidence of this tactic being employed, an excellent approximation from the early 21st Century shows what it might have looked like.
The raised skirt panty spanking must have proved a very effective weapon as by the end of the decade the bobby soxers were in retreat. At the top of this post we see a student with a comb stuffed down her sock but it was a different kind of hair grooming device which proved their final undoing.The ultimate deterrent was reluctantly put into use against the remaining rebels.
Hairbrush-ima soon had the bobby soxers begging to surrender and behave!
Credits: [Bobbysoxer6] This picture is from Harry’s collection and it’s never been on the internet before.
[utah] JS 666 sent me this version of the famous student paddling picture which is better quality than the one seen on most sites.
{Bobbysoxer5] I found this on Richard Windsor’s blog.
[Bobbysoxer3] I think this is from the website Punished Brats.
The Spank Statement 