Generations · 2 of 11
They grew up in the Depression and won the war. Somebody's grandparents, maybe yours.
Who was the Greatest Generation?
The Greatest Generation were born before 1928, mostly from about 1901. They grew up in the Great Depression and fought or worked through the Second World War. Tom Brokaw named them in his 1998 book. Strauss and Howe call them the G.I. Generation and see the Millennials as their counterpart.
The years, by who you ask
Nobody owns these lines. Each researcher draws them for their own reasons, so the edges move.
| Pew Research Center | before 1928 1 |
|---|---|
| Strauss & Howe | 1901–1924, the "G.I. Generation" 2 |
| Common usage | 1901–1927 3 |
Pew no longer reports survey data on this generation, because by 2015 it made up only about 2 percent of American adults. 1
The world they were born into
What was going on while they were small, and while they were young enough for it to stick.
- Childhood1910sMany were small children during the First World War and the 1918 flu, which killed about 675,000 Americans. 4
- The crash1929–1933Many were teenagers or young adults when the market crashed in 1929. The recession that followed ran from August 1929 to March 1933, forty-three months. 5,6
- Fewer babies1933The Depression showed up in the birth figures: US births fell to about 2.3 million in 1933, the low point of the century. 7
- The war1941–1945They fought the Second World War, and built the ships, planes and munitions at home. 8
- Coming home1944President Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill on 22 June 1944, days after D-Day. Within seven years about 8 million veterans used its education benefits, 2.3 million of them at college, and it backed home loans for millions more. 9
- The boom1946–1964They raised most of the Baby Boomers: 76 million American births in nineteen years. 10
Where the name came from
Tom Brokaw called them "the greatest generation any society has ever produced" in his 1998 book, built from the stories of ordinary people who had lived through the Depression and the war. The phrase itself turns up earlier, in speeches by a Texas congressman in 1940, but Brokaw made it famous. 8,3
They were already the "G.I. Generation" by 1946, after the soldiers' slang for government issue, and Strauss and Howe kept that name in 1991. 3
How they're usually described
The generalities: what researchers and writers say about the group as a whole. A group portrait, never a person.
Duty and responsibility. Brokaw's book describes a generation bound together by duty, honour, courage and taking responsibility for themselves. 8
Builders. Strauss and Howe make them their model Hero generation: they came of age in a crisis, then spent their adult lives building institutions. 2
Trusting. They grew up with institutions that, by the end of the war, had delivered. Their children and grandchildren are less trusting: in a 2014 Pew survey, 40 percent of Boomers said most people can be trusted, against 31 percent of Gen X and 19 percent of Millennials. 11
Next to the other generations
Who raised them, who they raised, and where the friction and the common ground show up in the data.
The Baby Boomers. Their children. The famous generation gap of the 1960s was mostly between these two, over the Vietnam War, civil rights, rock music and the counterculture. Even then, in 1969, 74 percent of Americans said there was a generation gap. 12
The Silent Generation. Their younger brothers and sisters, mostly too young to fight, who grew up in the war's shadow.
The Millennials. Their counterpart in the four-turnings theory: both are Hero generations, born during an Unraveling and expected to rebuild institutions in a Crisis. Whether the Millennials play that part is still unknown. 2
In the long cycle
A theory, not a finding: Strauss and Howe's idea that generations come round in a four-part pattern. How the theory works, and its critics.
In the four-turnings scheme the G.I. Generation was born during the Unraveling of the 1900s to 1920s, came of age in the Crisis of the Depression and the Second World War, and ran the confident High that followed. The theory's boldest claim is that the Millennials were cast in the same role for the current cycle. 2,13
The decades they were born in
The Greatest Generation were born before the decades this site covers. Most Boomers born in the 1950s and early 1960s were their children.
Questions people ask
Why are they called the Greatest Generation?
From Tom Brokaw's 1998 book The Greatest Generation, about Americans who grew up in the Great Depression and fought or worked through the Second World War.
What years was the Greatest Generation born?
Pew counts anyone born before 1928. Strauss and Howe, who call them the G.I. Generation, use 1901 to 1924.
What did the G.I. Bill do?
Signed on 22 June 1944, it paid for returning veterans' college and training, unemployment support and home loans. About 8 million veterans used the education benefits within seven years.
They shared a war. You have a sky nobody else had.
Your generation is the crowd you were born into. Your card is worked out from your own birthday, minute and place: the sky that night, your numbers and your Chinese year. Sealed until you print it.
What your card covers
See all six pages, sealedFold the pages back
1 Who you are
2 The machine says
3 Your sky
4 Love & your people
5 Work & money
6 Your year ahead
Sources
- The Whys and Hows of Generations Research, Pew Research Center, 3 September 2015. Read on .
- Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, Amanda van Eck Duymaer van Twist and Suzanne Newcombe (Inform), 2017, updated 15 January 2021. Read on .
- Generational Cohorts, Wordorigins.org, David Wilton, 20 October 2020. Read on .
- 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus), CDC (archived page). Read on .
- Stock Market Crash of 1929, Federal Reserve History, Gary Richardson and others. Read on .
- US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions, National Bureau of Economic Research. Read on .
- NCHS – Births and General Fertility Rates: United States, 1909–2018, CDC, NCHS (data.gov dataset). Read on .
- The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw, Open Library catalogue record (Random House; first published 1998). Read on .
- Servicemen's Readjustment Act (1944), U.S. National Archives. Read on .
- The oldest Baby Boomers turn 80 in 2026, Pew Research Center, 9 January 2026. Read on .
- Millennials in Adulthood, Pew Research Center, 7 March 2014. Read on .
- Forty Years After Woodstock, A Gentler Generation Gap, Pew Research Center, 12 August 2009. Read on .
- The Fourth Turning: How History's Crisis Period Could Unfold, The Art of Manliness podcast #913, Brett McKay with Neil Howe, 19 July 2023. Read on .