Consider, if you will, the life of a teenager living in the 1940's. The Great Depression was finally coming to an end, but the memories of the rough times would scar its sufferers for a lifetime. Caused by a number of serious weaknesses in the economy, the depression saw a rapid decline in the production and sale of goods, as well as a sudden, severe rise in unemployment. Businesses and banks closed their doors, people lost their jobs, homes, and savings; many people depended on charity to survive (**encarta**). Teenagers were given a tremendous amount of responsibility. While their fathers were out doing what little work there was, it wasn't unlikely for teens to be at home with their mothers doing housework or caring for younger siblings. Life was less than easy, and the emerging world war didn't make it any easier. As the U.S. became the last great nation to join the second global conflict of the century, young men (many of them in their late teens) at their physical peak were sent out to the battlefield where about 274,000 of them would die for their country (editors of Time-Life books 29).

The 50's brought about a tremendous change for the U.S. It

different from the standards that society had set for them. A few marched boldly to the beat of their own drummer, but the majority of teenagers did their best to dress like everyone else, to have dates for football games and dances, and to cruise around town with a carload of friends. The aim was to seem normal and to never be called "square." Girls had an added worry: their reputation. They didn't want people to say that they were "fast" (editors of Time-Life books 68). To teenagers, rock and roll was and escape; a way to be different from their parents and excepted by their peers at the same time.

Freed, with his bosses permission, began blaring out rhythm and blues at the end of his show. Because so many requests flooded in from teenagers in the white suburbs as well as from blacks, Freed launched a late night show that played only rhythm and blues. Popular records he spun featured performers such as the Dominoes, Joe Turner, Ivory Joe Hunter, Ruth Brow, and Wynonie Harris.

Freed gradually started referring to rhythm and blues as rock and roll. The reason he decided to change the name of the music was because rhythm and blues was so closely identified with the black community. Freed also wanted to make rhythm and blues more acceptable to white listeners. What Freed knew, but few whites were aware of at the time, was that the term rock and roll was widely used in black music as slang for "sex" (rock and roll generation).

The success of rhythm and blues lead Freed to promote the music outside of the studio. He decided to put on his own show which he called the Moondog Coronation Ball of March 21, 1952. This event, at which Freed intended to be crowned king, was scheduled for the Cleveland arena which had 10,000 seats. More than twice that number showed up, and the event had to be called off when thousands of teenagers without tickets crashed the gates.

's no wonder that when rock and roll came to be in the mid 1950's (encyclopedia Americana need page #) teenagers wrapped their arms around it. The parents of these rock-loving teens were already fulfilling the American dream. The average worker was earning and estimated $6,500 by 1954. With paychecks fatter than ever, more and more Americans began moving to the suburbs, owning their own

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