Silent Generation is a label for the generation of Americans born from 1925–1945 notably during the Great Depression (1929–1939) and World War II (1939–1945).[1] While the label was originally applied to people in North America, it has also been applied to those in Western Europe and Australasia. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War.
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The label "Silent Generation" was first coined in the November 5, 1951 cover story of Time to refer to the generation coming of age at the time, born during the Great Depression and World War II, including the bulk of those who fought during the Korean War. The article, (which defined the generation at the time as born from 1925 to 1945), found its characteristics as grave and fatalistic, conventional, possessing confused morals, expecting disappointment but desiring faith, and for women, desiring both a career and a family.[1] The article stated:
Youth today is waiting for the hand of fate to fall on its shoulders, meanwhile working fairly hard and saying almost nothing. The most startling fact about the younger generation is its silence. With some rare exceptions, youth is nowhere near the rostrum. By comparison with the Flaming Youth of their fathers & mothers, today's younger generation is a still, small flame. It does not issue manifestos, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the "Silent Generation."
The phrase gained further currency after William Manchester's comment that the members of this generation were "withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous and silent." The name was used by Strauss and Howe in their book Generations as their designation for that generation in the United States of America born from 1925 to 1941.[2] The generation is also known as the Postwar Generation and the Seekers, when it is not neglected altogether and placed by marketers in the same category as the G.I. or "Greatest" Generation.
In England, they were named the "Air Raid Generation" as children growing up amidst the crossfire of World War II.
It must be noted that the lowest birth years from 1929-1945 in the US were 1944 and 1945.. And as a result of World War II, the US birth rate in 1945 was almost as low as 1944's. However, for some reason, children born from 1942 to 1945 seem to have been excluded by many demographers from this Silent Generation. These children did not grow up during the Great Depression, and neither are they part of the Baby Boom Generation.
The Silent Generation was smaller than the WWI generation before them and the Baby Boom Generation afterwards due to the lower birthrate of the 1930s and '40s. As a result, members of the Silent Generation were uniquely poised to take advantage of economic opportunities, thanks to the reduced competition. Many of them went on to harness the scientific and technological advances of the Second World War, developing innovative inventions which laid the groundwork for even more technological progress in the late 20th century. The Silent Generation had a tendency to be better educated than the WWI generation because of not having their schooling interrupted by the Depression and the war.
Silent Generation members are generally the offspring of The Lost Generation (sometimes WWI generation) and the parents of boomers and Generation Xers. Many of them currently have grandchildren that are Generation Y and Generation Z. They are said to be born on the cusp of the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom Generation, at times possessing characteristics of both while at other times, evading grouping into either camp. The earlier Silent Generations tended to identify more with the WWII generation and the later ones with the boomers.
In Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe define this generation as an Artist/Adaptive generation. An Artist (or Adaptive) generation is born during a Crisis, spends its rising adult years in a new High, spends midlife in an Awakening, and spends old age in an Unraveling. Artistic leaders have been advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure.
In a broad view, their labeling as an "Artistic" generations seems apt and the term "silent" might even be applied ironically. Most counterculture figures were Silent Generation, including rock singers and individuals such as Ken Kesey, George Carlin, Allen Ginsberg, and Abbie Hoffman. If the last birth year of the Silent Generation was 1942, it would contain bands such as the Beatles as well as rock stars such as Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, and Jimi Hendrix. Elvis Presley was also of this generation, as were some of the most famous movie stars of all time such as Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Clint Eastwood and James Dean. This generation contributed greatly to African American music, like soul music and rhythm & blues, producing singers like Ray Charles, Little Richard, James Brown, Marvin Gaye, guitarist B.B. King, producer Quincy Jones, and Tina Turner. Keeping to the "Artist's" advocacy of fairness and the politics of inclusion, many leaders in the civil rights movement came from the Silent Generation, along with a wide assortment of artists and writers who fundamentally changed the arts in the United States. The Beat Poets, for example, were members of the Silent Generation, as were Martin Luther King, Jr and Gloria Steinem. In France, members of this generation became leading intellectuals and philosophers in the wake of the May 1968 protests, including Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Alain Badiou, contributing to the phenomena known as "French theory" in US academia in the 1980s and 1990s.
The continued use of “Silent Generation” as a label has been justified by the lack of influential political leaders born into this generation. For example, using the Strauss and Howe definition, no US President has come from the Silent Generation; the few from the generation who ran for President include: Walter Mondale, Ron Paul, John McCain, Michael Dukakis, Newt Gingrich, Ralph Nader, Jack Kemp and Rev Jesse Jackson. Some other notable Silent Generation political figures include Dick Cheney and Nancy Pelosi.
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