High school yearbooks provide both a vivid snapshot of student life and a reflection of what the adults in the community valued the most. For instance, athletics are often covered more than academics, and boys’ sports routinely receive more attention than girls’ sports. But how have those values changed over time?
In The High School, acclaimed sociologist Michael A. Messner reads through 120 years of El Gabilan, the yearbook from his own alma mater, Salinas High School in California, where his father taught and coached. Treating the yearbooks as a historical archive, Messner makes surprising discoveries about the school he thought he knew so well. For example, over fifty years before Title IX, the earliest yearbooks gave equal spotlights to boys’ and girls’ athletics, while the cheerleaders were all boys.
Tracing American life and culture from 1903 to 2024, Messner illuminates shifts in social practices at his high school that reflect broader changes in American culture across the twentieth century. The High School spotlights how the meanings and iconography of certain activities have changed radically over the decades, even as the “sports spirit complex”—involving athletes, cheerleaders, band members, and community boosters—has remained a central part of the high school experience. By exploring evolving sports cultures, socioeconomic conditions, racial demographics, and gender norms, Messner offers a fresh perspective on a defining feature of American teenage life.
Introduction
1. “All prejudices have been swept away”: 1903-1925
2. Football heroes and girls with pep: 1926-1946
3. Pageants of gender: 1947-1974
4. Boom, bust, and Purple Pride: 1975-1999
5. “Who runs this world?”: 2000-2024
6. Conclusion: Paradoxes of progress
Appendix: High school yearbooks as personal and cultural memory
Acknowledgments
References
Notes
Index
introduction 1
Chapter 1 “All Prejudices Have Been Swept Away”: 1903–1925 23
Chapter 2 Football Heroes and Girls with “Pep”: 1926–1946 57
Chapter 3 Pageants of Gender: 1947–1974 103
Chapter 4 Boom, Bust, and Purple Pride: 1975–1999 159
Chapter 5 “Who Runs This World?”: 2000–2024 207
Conclusion: Paradoxes of Pro gress 257
appendix: high school yearbooks as
personal and cultural memory 267
acknowledgments 277
notes 281
references 305
index 000
