After the hard lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic finally loosened up, many people—and especially teenagers who had their school years interrupted—talked about wanting to make up for lost time. The phrase “hot girl summer” may have originated in 2019 with a song by Megan Thee Stallion, but it came up again frequently when vaccines became available and public spaces opened back up again.
That more recent history something to keep in mind when considering a 1947 photo essay by staff photographer Nina Leen about teenagers in the years immediately after World War II. As described by LIFE, those teenagers were pretty much the opposite of the COVID kids.
The 1947 photo essay by Leen centered on a pair 17-year-old identical twins named Betty and Barbara Bounds. The point of choosing identical twins as the main subject may have been to add an element of symmetry to a story about how young people had become fastidious about their appearance.
According to LIFE’s story, headlined “Tulsa Twins: They Show How Much the Teenage World Has Changed,” young people after World War II aspired to be being dignified and proper:
In 1944 when Betty and Barbara Bounds, who are identical twins, entered Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, their clothes were sloppy; hot music was the rage and the general behavior of the world was somewhat footloose….Today the teenage world of Betty and Barbara is entirely different. Their clothes are feminine and fastidious; sweet music has replaced hot licks and the general tone of the teenage life is more decorous. The reason for this may be all tied up with the U.S. transition to peace or merely an adolescent desire for something new.
Going with the idea that the teenage trends were a reaction to the war, the motivation behind it underlines the key difference between the pandemic lockdowns and the deprivations of World War II on the domestic front. The pandemic restrictions robbed young people of social opportunities. Whereas the World War II and the rationing of goods meant that teenagers at home were limited less by where they could go than what they could have.
Leen used the mood of the day to create these idealized images of youth. The photo of the Bounds sisters at a dance is as dreamy a picture of teenage life as you will find anywhere.
Teenagers at a party in 1947 in Tulsa, Oklahoma; LIFE reported that these kids “munch doughnuts and sip cokes whenever they are not dancing with serious faces to sentimental music.”
Nina Leen/Life Pictures/Shutterstock
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds with their parents, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds at ballet class, 1947. A LIFE photo essay highlighted the twins as examples of the decorous lifestyle choices being made by teenagers in the days after World War II.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds, 1947.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds spoke with a friend, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Barbara Bounds, 17, and friend work on the mixture for a fudge cake, Tulsa, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Tulsa twins Betty and Barbara Bounds, 1947.
Nina Leen The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock images
Teenage life in Tulsa, 1947.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A teenage girl in Tulsa, Oklahoma used nail polish to decorate her sunglass frames, 1947.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Bounds, with real gardenias in her hair, wore a full-skirted evening dress embellished with an artificial gardenia while waiting at door for her date, Tulsa, 1947.
Nina Leen/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
