Hello.
Another week completed in the archives. We may be having a heatwave outside but down here in the reading room it hasn’t got any warmer. However, Val, head of academic services, filled me with joy and warmth on Thursday by giving me the very important task of testing out the new library blankets. As you can tell I took the task very seriously indeed, but on reflection, a slanket (that’s a blanket with sleeves for those of you not up to speed with your loungewear lingo) would have been more practical. Attempting to insert domestic content into Excel whilst keeping a blanket around my shoulders proved harder than first anticipated.
Anyway, on to this week’s topic. What did girls do with Jackie?
This week’s main task was to continue reading for the domestic, but now beginning to theme the content, into categories such as sewing, recipes, careers and domestic relationships. Katie and myself took a year each and started this mammoth task, continuing to navigate how to format spreadsheets on Excel.
Whilst browsing through 1975 editions of Jackie it struck me just how much the pages are covered with biro, or the middle of pages cut out, and how inevitably this must mean that girls were actively engaging with the content. One reason I chose to apply for this internship is the possibilities that archival research reveals. Every day you discover a new avenue of possibility, which inspires you to look at things differently.
McRobbie states Jackie steered girls towards ‘traditional female passive behaviour’ (1991, p.115). Although, I do agree to an extent that the tasks represented are traditionally female from sewing to cooking. I do not believe the girls were passive in their behaviour. Finding enjoyment in sewing and crafting is not (always) a form of oppression, or a backwards step for feminism but a way for individuals to express their identity and use something they are oppressed for (being a woman) in a positive way. These girls were not just reading Jackie but being creative with it. Just looking through the collection of Jackie reveals the ways girls engaged with the magazine.
Here are some examples:
Quizzes
(Jackie, 13th December 1975)
One of my favourite things I have found this week, is this quiz, Can You Face the World? It is not just any quiz it’s a Jackie quiz. The premise is you have just left the comfort of your home and you are facing a job in the “big bad world”. The reader starts with ten pounds “wages” and how you face each hypothetical job situation, either adds to or takes away from your money. My first thought that the girl who filled in this quiz would have picked each answer that allowed her to take home the most money. However, as you can see, she appears to have filled out the quiz honestly indicating that the readers were taking the advice seriously.
Cut Outs
(Jackie, 9th August 1975)
Plenty of the pages of the 1975 editions also had letters, or faces, or small amounts of the pages cut out. Jackie, often made suggestions to make scrapbooks, and, although I cannot be certain, it is assumed that, the owner the owner of this particular copy was using the title letters to college words for a crafting project. This shows the continuing life of the magazine and how it lives on after its words were read, in scrapbooks now inevitably stored in lofts and the Femorabilia archive.
Doodling
(Jackie, December 1st 1973). (Jackie, June 7th 1975)
From these doodles, I think that Nina, really, really, fancied Donald and the best way to express this was to doodle his name, and how their names fitted together.
Furthermore, on the right, we have someone who did not want the Jackie girl to have a pretty face instead choosing to graffiti her face with spots, dirty teeth and glasses. As Jackie reveals, being a teenage girl was an emotional time filled with the difficulties of family life, boyfriends and exams. For this poor model, the reader’s emotions have been inflicted upon her face.
Jackie was not just a magazine; it was a secret diary, a confidant, a friend, the bearer of new crushes and anger.
Readers’ Ideas
Week upon week, the Patchwork feature (which our spreadsheet reveals is filled with domestic content) has readers’ crafting ideas. A particular favourite is Claire’s idea for an emery board holder to stop them breaking. Although the money incentive may have helped, the readers obviously loved to share how they have used their own domestic skills, offering practical solutions to their peers.
(Jackie, 8th August 1975)
This active engagement with the physical magazine suggests to me that the domestic content must have been engaged with, week upon week honing their skills which would eventually make them good homemakers. Whether this is a good or bad thing I am still unsure of. On one hand, these tasks can be a good outlet for creativity and self-expression. On the other, if they are all that is offered are we confining girls to a life of oppressive domesticity?
I thought I would end this week’s post with this reader’s letter which made Katie and I really smile. If only Janet Barton knew that one day, Jackie would be the topic of research internships. We think Cathy and Claire can be quite intense (so many breakups!) yet equal parts hilarious if we are being honest Janet.
(Jackie, 29th November 1975)
Until next week,
Rosie Steele.
References
McRobbie, A. (1991) Feminism and Youth Culture From Jackie to Just Seventeen. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education
LJMU Special Collections & Archives 
Well, I was reading Jackie in 1975, as a 13 year old. And we did all that, and more. Except we ALL didn’t do that. Yes, we all engaged, but some of us also refused to let them be drawn on and made sure that you only answered quizes, filled in teeth and scriblled over the little sister’s copy as YOUR copy was kept in a neat pile in the wardrobe.
The ‘new’ Jackie in your hands, AT SCHOOL was social currency in a big way. And most Jackies were tatters within a few weeks. And many were shredded for photos of the latest idol, all sellotaped up on your bedroom wall, and the tiny ones put into your purse and blazer pockets.
You also swapped cut out photos with others as there were always horrible choices to be made about the person on the front of the page, or the person cut through on the back. So those who would buy two copies to get ALL the cut out photos they wanted, would trade extras for other photos. I doubt for one second a cut to shreds Jackie is in any archive.
And they were laughed at and ridiculed as well. The quizes were laughed at, and you’d try and change your answers to see how you ended up with ‘what you wanted’. And what you wanted wasn’t always what they told you.
You also made sure your friend who wasn’t allowed to read Jackie, got to see your copy first.
And many red faced giggles and gasps about girsl he wrote in with their ‘problems’ for being total losers, as well as utter shying away from anything that might suggest periods and somesuch nastiness. (Catholic school, periods were shameful and NEVER MENTIONED.)
A new copy of Jackie was indeed, a glorious thing. At least two, if not three days of delight in school breaks and lunches. And on the bus home.
Jackie was a vital social bonding device for many many girls. No doubt other girls ignored it. I wasn’t one of those, so I don’t know about that.
But no one in my school was into making crafts and getting things published about such things. That was for Posh Girls Who Obviously Lived Elsewhere Did Such Girls Really Exist? No one ever recognised themselves in any letters page.
LikeLike