Courting Change: Dating in America from the Early Twentieth Century to the Sexual Revolution

A fancy dinner, a night on the town, horse riding on the beach, the ideal date can be a lot of things, but is often expensive. Dating is a regular part of life in America, and many people don’t consider that dating is just a system of courting. Even within academia, few works have thoroughly covered the history of dating before the sexual revolution. Among the works that have been done, Beth L. Bailey’s book From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America stands as one of the few comprehensive looks into dating and its origins, and provides the foundation for this article. Dating, in my view, has a clear progression as norms within dating culture get exaggerated over time, but rarely change. At its core, the dating system of courtship that dominated the 20th century actively encouraged objectification of both men and women by promoting consumerism and making courtship a system of exchange rather than mutual interest.

Before the turn of the 20^th century, the calling system was used in most cases for courtship between young men and young women. Under this system, men would visit a woman’s family home and spend time with her under supervision from her parents. The beginning of this process involved a formal introduction. The woman in question had to be introduced to a man in a social setting, then if she was attracted a “call” could be sent.¹

Though this is an older couple, the average call might consist of simply sitting on the porch swing and talking.

Arthur Public Library and IMLS Digital Collections & Content, People, Men and Women, January 1, 1905, photo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/imlsdcc/5637854700/.

Exceptions to this existed primarily in working-class families, where calling was unrealistic. Many working-class families, both urban and rural, simply did not have the required space in their homes to give a young couple relative privacy. Calling was largely based in parlors, a room specifically for entertaining guests. The answer for these working-class families was public, rather than private, courting. This, the dating system of courtship, saw young couples doing public activities together away from parental supervision.²

This is an example of a parlor, a common area located next to the front door.

Derek Doran Wood, Page 33, No. 3: Richardson House Front Parlor, January 1, 1915, photo, https://www.flickr.com/photos/justderek/2306985088/.

There were three fundamental differences between the calling and dating systems. First, the change from private meetings to public meetings encouraged the spectacle and visibility of the date. The more impressive your date is, the more you can brag about it to your friends. Second, the dating system is predicated on spending money. A typical date in the early-mid 20^th century involved watching a movie and getting a snack afterwards. Alongside this, it became customary from the beginning of the dating system for the man to cover all expenses. Lastly, because men were paying for the dates (and were the ones attempting to win the woman’s hand in marriage), they were also expected to plan the dates. Whereas before women would decide (with parental help, of course) who and when they would entertain a guest, dating placed that agency with men.³

Problems with dating emerged from its inception. The practice of “treating” saw women trading their intimacy, which could range from touching, kissing, or intercourse, for monetary favors. Treating occurred in large part because women in working-class families often gave their salaries to their families and had little to no spending money. Treating, then, offered a chance for women to experience things they would not otherwise be able to afford. Treating existed through the early and middle 20^th century, but with the 1920s and the rise of dating’s popularity the lines between what was and wasn’t treating became blurred.⁴ In the absence of the calling system all women were basically participating in treating, as men under the dating system were expected to provide and pay for an experience.

Objectification followed closely behind dating, as courtship became commodified.⁵ The line of reasoning is clear from both the male and female perspective: men pay for dates and thus expect some form of payment in return, and women use dates to get experiences they don’t have to pay for. The quickly apparent result of the dating system is that men are viewed as wallets and women are viewed as sexual objects. Whether or not you agree with this mentality, dating undeniably installed a sense of exchange in courtship that was not as prevalent in calling.

The dating system and its increased distance from parental gazes saw “necking” and “petting” became increasingly popular, particularly in the 40s and 50s. Petting was the act of intimate bodily touching between partners, and necking was petting from the neck up. Importantly, both acts did not involve sex or exceedingly erotic movements. They were, however, treated with disgust from authority figures, with many reported instances of college dorms condemning petting and implementing curfews in common areas to try to prevent it.⁶

As American culture continued to embrace dating through the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, the weight of expectations surrounding dates grew heavier and heavier. Men experienced this through increased financial expectations of dates. As Beth L. Bailey notes in her book From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, a 1938 column in Senior Scholastic described the perfect date at a price of $5.50. This equates to $120 today, and marks the extreme expectations laid on even high school-aged boys.⁷ Women, on the other hand, were increasingly subjected to rising standards of beauty. In the absence of “natural” beauty, as found in celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and Katharine Hepburn, women were encouraged to buy products to emulate the figureheads of beauty.

Proms provided a unique financial expectation for both boys and girls in high school. Beth L. Bailey again provides an excellent reference from a Ladies Home Journal article in 1949 which estimates the average cost of prom for boys to be between $42-$52 ($543-$672 today) and $20-$55 ($258-$711 today) for girls.⁸ These figures show the extravagance of courtship had reached unrealistic levels by the 40s and 50s.

When the Baby Boom Generation were coming into their teenage and early adult years during the 1960s and 70s, they inherited the dating culture their parents and grandparents had created. In particular, the 1950s saw a culmination of the previously mentioned topics. Public displays of affection, namely petting, became widely popular and (relatively) accepted in the 50s and primed the Baby Boomers to consider such displays normal for young couples. Alongside the increased non-sexual contact between young couples, premarital sex rates skyrocketed during the 50s.⁹ An overwhelming majority of couples who had premarital sex and got pregnant, however, got married before the baby was born. This resulted in a new cultural climate where increasing numbers of young people were open to the idea of premarital sex, and conversations about sex were becoming more important as parents and authority figures tried to prevent it.

By the time the Baby Boom Generation was entering adulthood in the 1960s and 70s, the young people of the 50s had set a (contested) precedent for American youth to show public affection and engage in an increasingly sexualized dating scene.¹⁰ When this inherited dating culture met with the issues of the 60s such as feminism and civil rights, many young adults questioned the rules set in place by previous generations. The sexual revolution was the Baby Boomer’s response to dating culture along with the increasingly popular idea of female liberation.

Questioning established norms was perhaps the defining characteristic of the Baby Boom Generation and was not limited to dating. The feminist movement of the early 20^th century found new life in the 60s, as women in the Baby Boom Generation desired the choice to pursue a career or marriage. In fact, young women were encouraged to enjoy their freedom and pursue what interested them before “settling down.” During this trend of marrying later in life, dating remained popular, though in a more casual form.¹¹ Ironically, the feminist movement of the 60s and 70s which fought against the objectification of women only enabled the male idea of money in exchange for favors.

This video from the national archive highlights some of the expectations of dating in the mid-20th century. Fancy restaurants, gentlemanly gestures, etc. all add to the complexity.

The Best Film Archives, “Retro Dating Tips: How to Succeed with Brunettes | US Navy Instructional Film | 1967”, March 30, 2018, educational video, 16:38, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2smsh94zPto

When oral contraceptives became widely available (and trusted) in the 1960s, the choice between family or career became more approachable. “The pill,” as it became known, had a large impact on promiscuity, as people interested in sex gained a certain confidence that they wouldn’t have to worry about children until they were ready. With pre-marital sex rates already sky high from the 50s, the introduction of the pill to American society did not increase sexual activity outside of wedlock. It did, however, encourage those already interested in more casual sex to pursue it. In essence, then, the pill acted as a sort of safety net. It did not necessarily encourage people to be more sexually active, it just reassured those who already were.¹²

The dating system of courtship is uniquely American and developed in an unsurprising time. The Roaring 20s saw the infusion of money into courting. Parents were no long watching over their daughter, as searching for a spouse became a public affair. As dating became the norm in America, so too did objectification. Women of the 40s and 50s, much like the heavily criticized practice of treating, sought lavish dates where no financial burden was placed on them. In the same light, men paying for dates sought some of compensation for their money.

When dating came in view of the cultural mirror that was the Baby Boom Generation it encountered other movements, namely feminism. The 60s marked a dramatic change in marriage rates, but not interest in dating. The result was a more casual dating climate which short-term satisfaction rather than long-term goals of marriage and family. The sexual revolution did not push back against consumerism, which still exists today. Because of this, the debate over objectification still exists today, along with the dating system. Even a century after dating became the popular form of courtship, we face the same problems that forcing money into romance brings today. Only by learning the lessons of the past, however, can we move forward.

And the rest is history

Featured Image:

Northridge Alumni Bear Facts, Prom Friday, April 28, 1961 Oriental Springtime, April 28, 1961, photo, April 28, 1961, https://www.flickr.com/photos/nhsalumni/6887718609/.

1. Beth L. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 13–15. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat, 15-24. ↩︎
4. Elizabeth Alice Clement, Love for Sale Courting, Treating, and Prostitution in New York City, 1900-1945, Gender and American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 63–64. ↩︎
5. Bailey, 57-58. ↩︎
6. Bailey, 80-83 ↩︎
7. Bailey, 60-61 ↩︎
8. Bailey, 70-72 ↩︎
9. Elaine Tyler May, America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 74. ↩︎
10. May, America and the Pill, 84. ↩︎
11. Michael M. Uzomah and Titi Christiana Falana, “Sex, Feminism and Sexual Revolution,” Social Sciences, Humanities and Education Journal (SHE Journal) 1, no. 3 (September 30, 2020): 10–28, https://doi.org/10.25273/she.v1i3.7550. ↩︎
12. May, America and the Pill, 73-74. ↩︎

How to cite this article:

Luke Aldridge, “Courting Change: Dating in America from the Early Twentieth Century to the Seventies”, Digital History at USC Aiken, 2023, https://wordpress.com/post/digitalhistoryusca.com/1864.

Further reading on cultural change during the mid 20th century:

Katie Elizabeth Anderson, “Film as a Reflection of Society: Interracial Marriage and Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in Late 1960s America,” Studies by Undergraduate Researchers at Guelph 4, no. 1 (2010): n/a, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1412292552/abstract/D5B9410F9120474FPQ/1

Steven Angelides, “The ‘Second Sexual Revolution’, Moral Panic, and the Evasion of Teenage Sexual Subjectivity,” Women’s History Review 21, no. 5 (November 2012): 831–47, https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2012.658169.

Shelly Lundberg and Robert A. Pollak, “The Evolving Role of Marriage: 1950-2010,” The Future of Children 25, no. 2 (2015): 29–50, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43581971.

Anne McLeer, “Practical Perfection? The Nanny Negotiates Gender, Class, and Family Contradictions in 1960s Popular Culture,” NWSA Journal 14, no. 2 (2002): 80–101, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316893.

Jessamyn Neuhaus, “The Importance of Being Orgasmic: Sexuality, Gender, and Marital Sex Manuals in the United States, 1920-1963,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9, no. 4 (2000): 447–73, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3704912.