Last week, I read that a Texas teenager made $300,000 the old-fashioned way: Maya Van Wagenen wrote a memoir about her experiences following the advice from “Betty Cornell’s Teen-Age Popularity Guide” — an etiquette book published in 1958 — and then got a movie deal.
Cornell’s book details all the essentials a girl needs to know to be popular in the 1950s — from diet to clothing to being a proper hostess.
I was intrigued. Would a guide to becoming a popular teenager in mid-century America still be relevant to someone like myself — a 14-year-old high school freshman living on the Upper East Side in 2013? I had to find out.
However, the first challenge was finding an actual copy of the book, which hasn’t been in print for decades. I finally tracked one down at the New York Public Library. In the dated book, Betty made this promise:
“I don’t care who she may be, every girl wants to be attractive and popular. To get to be that kind of girl, all you have to do is try some of my suggestions.”
With that in mind, I proceeded to spend a week in the squeaky-clean shoes of Betty Cornell’s ideal teenager. Here, I share my experience:
“Hair”
Normally I wash my hair every other day, but Betty recommends washing it at least once a week, so I gave myself a two-day break in between shampoos. She also says to brush your locks 100 times before bed and set your hair with rag curlers at least once a week. “Beautiful hair is about the most important thing a girl has,” she writes. I attempted the rag curlers, but apparently I didn’t do it properly because I woke up with them scattered all around my pillow. I was religious with the 100 strokes, even if it meant staying up an extra five to 10 minutes every night. I did notice a change in my hair about halfway through the week — it became considerably glossier. It has never looked better, so I might continue this.
“Skin Problems”
As a busy teenager, I just scrub when I remember to, which is pretty sad. Betty warns, “The two big troublemakers in skin conditions are diet and dirt. Too much chocolate and too little soap and water are the basic irritants.” Since I don’t eat too much junk food, I figured I’d have to concentrate on the washing. The book suggests massaging a generous amount of cleansing cream into the skin, letting it sit for at least two minutes and then washing it with soap and water.
This was perhaps the most laborious part of my new lifestyle. I would wake up every morning 10 minutes earlier than usual just to carry out the prescribed steps. First, I had to rinse my face under hot water, to open up the pores. Then I had to thoroughly scrub my face with soap (I used a regular face wash) for a few minutes, making sure to massage my face to keep circulation moving. Finally, I had to wash the soap off with cold water to close up the pores. The book even recommended using ice cubes to get the soap off. I did not try this.
I did get more frequent ‘hurry up’ banging on the bathroom door than usual from my parents. Though none of my friends noticed my new glow, my skin did feel a lot better after this thorough scrub twice a day, although I admittedly did not use a cleansing cream before the ritual, as recommended — I couldn’t find it anywhere.
“What To Wear Where”
Most days, I wear jeans, a sweater and Uggs. However, the book suggests something more polished — the illustrations show a fuller skirt with fitted sweater, so I relied on below-the-knee skirts, Peter Pan collars, sweaters and dresses — mostly in Betty’s suggested neutrals of navy blue, gray or green. She also instructs teens to wear saddle shoes to school, but my interpretation — Oxfords and short heels in brown and black — were a little strange for a modern teenage girl to wear. All of my outfits were accented with a strand of pearls because Betty says, “Fads come and go, but a simple string of small pearls is still a young girl’s best friend.”
At first I got lots of strange looks from my friends. Halfway through history class, someone asked me why I was dressed like a history teacher. There were a few whispers and some laughing, but I didn’t mind. The Oxfords were stiff and gave me blisters, so I had to ditch them in favor of ballet flats. Still, I felt really feminine since my usual jeans and sweaters aren’t very gender specific.
Playing dress-up was both the most difficult and most fun part of my experiment. Though I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could become popular by wearing Peter Pan collars and long skirts to school. Even though I felt very elegant, I did miss my jeans. A lot.
“Teen-Age Exercises”
I am a swimmer, so getting exercise is never an issue. I like to be fit and toned so that I feel healthy, but Betty suggests it’s more about looking like a model. “What we’re all striving for is a well-developed, well-proportioned figure, straight shoulders, small waist and hips, well-shaped legs and thin ankles, so you too can stand up — smile and be proud,” she says.
The book showed an array of exercises, which seemed similar to Pilates and good old-fashioned stretching. The model demonstrating it in the book is wearing an Audrey Hepburn-style black outfit with a neckerchief. The moves consisted of extending and alternatively lifting your legs off the floor to tone them, rocking back and forth on your hips and circling your ankles to slim them.
The exercises were fairly ridiculous. My fourth-grade gym class was more taxing than these. I swim regularly and exercise on top of that. But if I had to rely on just these movements, I’d have to cut back on my snacking even more. And who wears a neckerchief to work out!?
“Figure Problems”
Junk food has never been an issue for me. Usually I eat yogurt for breakfast, salad for lunch and chicken for dinner, with lots of fruit in between. I do eat a lot, but my food choices, like tons of fruit, would get the thumbs up from the first lady. I am not so sure about Betty Cornell. She suggests no snacking in between meals. Cornell recommends never skipping breakfast and forgoing salad dressings and chicken, avocado and tuna fish on your salads (too oily). Sample meals consist of proteins like ground-beef patties or lean roast beef with spinach and stewed apricots. Meals were taken with tomato juice and milk.
Per Betty’s suggestion, I ate soft-boiled egg for breakfast, a salad for lunch and a ground-beef patty for dinner. The book really focused on cutting out snacks such as cookies, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ice cream, which is a very good idea.
I had a very hard time surviving from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. on a soft-boiled egg and a piece of toast — “watch that butter!” warns Betty. I was famished. I felt full in the evening, though, and I really enjoyed my soft-boiled eggs. But I missed granola. And the ground-beef patties were probably the bane of my existence. Also, a glass of milk with meat is just inhumane.
“The Mail in Your Life”
The book devotes a lot of space to the art of writing a letter. According to Betty, ”Letters are still, in spite of telegraphs and telephones, one of the most pleasant things in life.” But like most modern-day teenage girls, I usually send e-mails to everyone I need to get in touch with. In fact, I don’t remember the last time I wrote a letter that wasn’t a customary “thank-you” note. I couldn’t forgo texting and e-mailing altogether, but I tried my hand at a few letters to friends and my aunt in Vermont.
Writing a letter almost felt entirely new to me. My handwriting isn’t the best, so I had to work on it a lot with an old ballpoint pen that was in the house. Even though I did not write a lot of letters, the process itself was quaint and elegant. I quite enjoyed getting out my stationary that I bought at Barnes and Noble and some cutesy cards I have from Hallmark, and sitting down at my desk with my laptop closed.
Conclusion
Although I wondered how this lifestyle could possibly make anyone more popular, I did feel a lot more elegant, composed and energized by the end of the week. It was a lot of fun to step into the shoes of a 1950s teenager — but for me, the experiment had a shelf life. If I knew there was a six-figure book deal behind a year’s worth of this proper behavior, I’d be Betty Cornell’s most devoted pupil. But since this idea is already taken, I think I’ll adopt some of the hair and skin tips and pass on the daily ground-beef patties, rigorous primping and stiff saddle shoes.”