Abstract

Many early twentieth-century observers attributed the migration of young people from the countryside to the city as much to the dullness of rural life as to its declining economic opportunities. The recollections of women and men who had grown up in a rural community near a rapidly growing urban area in south-central New York State, however, demonstrate that young people conducted a vibrant social life that was marked by heterosociality as well as relative independence from adults. Rural youth participated in urban institutions and partook of commercial amusements without abandoning their attachment to rural culture.

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