"In America, the Young Men and Women Would be Told HOW, not WHAT, to Think": Transnational Exchanges that Shaped U.S. Youth Politics, 1932-43

Abstract

This article examines how American youth activists and youth workers looked outside the United States in their quest to resolve a citizenship crisis of the Depression Generation. It focuses on three organizationsthe American Youth Congress, the National Youth Administration, and the YMCAthat studied youth conditions abroad to develop tools for increasing civic engagement and social reform. The goal of these programs was to transform the relationship between American youth and the state.