GENERATIONAL COHORTS

Education, Entertainment, History 6 Minutes

Did you ever wonder, like I have, how we came to separate and name the various generations? It started with the Boomers, the naming of the generations. Yes, the term Lost Generation came first, but the idea that demographic groupings of people born in a span of years should have a particular name really caught on with the post-WWII generation.

William Strauss and Neil Howe did not invent the idea of a generational schema, but they popularized it. In 1991, they published a book touting the idea that there were cyclical patterns in U.S. history based on generational differences. Their names for the generations, however, were different than those most commonly used today. Their names for the groups born in particular spans of years were:

1901–24: G.I.
1925–42: Silent
1943–60: Boomer
1961–81: 13er
1981– : Millennial

The generally accepted names today are as follows.

1883–1900: The Lost Generation
1901–28: The Greatest Generation (The G.I. Generation)
1929–45: The Silent Generation
1946–64: Baby Boomers
1965–80: Generation X (Gen X)
1981–96: Millennials (Generation Y)
1997–2012: Generation Z
2013– : Generation Alpha

But where do these names come from?

Lost Generation (1883–1900)

The name for the generation that fought in the First World War has a literary origin. The name is both literal and metaphorical. It is literal in sheer numbers of young men who died in the war but t is also metaphorical in that it represents a rootlessness and destruction of moral purpose as a result of the war. The term Lost Generation first appears in one of the epigraphs in Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. In the book, Hemingway attributed the phrase to Gertrude Stein in conversation. Four decades later, Hemingway described that conversation: “It was when we had come back from Canada and were living in the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Miss Stein and I were still good friends that Miss Stein made the remark about the lost generation. She had some ignition trouble with the old Model T Ford she then drove and the young man who worked in the garage and had served in the last year of the war had not been adept, or perhaps had not broken the priority of other vehicles, in repairing Miss Stein’s Ford. Anyway he had not been sérieux and had been corrected severely by the patron of the garage after Miss Stein’s protest. The patron had said to him, “You are all a génération perdue.”

“That’s what you are. That’s what you all are,” Miss Stein said. “All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.”

Greatest Generation / G.I. Generation (1901–27)

The earliest use of Greatest Generation is by Democratic Congressman Hatton Sumners of Dallas, Texas in 1940, before the United States was even in the war. Sumners used the term in a series of speeches, or the same stump speech, given multiple times that year. Sumners uses the term in an aspirational, rather than a descriptive sense, arguing that this generation must rise from the devastation of the Great Depression to fight fascism and right the world.

The other name for this particular generation is more prosaic: the G.I. Generation. It simply acknowledges the vast number of men of that cohort who served in uniform during the war.

Silent Generation (1928–45)

Bracketed by the war generation and the boomers and often overlooked, the Silent Generation would seem to be aptly named. The name first appears in the Detroit Free Press of 1 November 1951, but this is in an excerpt from a Time magazine piece of 5 November. The Time piece reads:

“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 manifestoes, make speeches or carry posters. It has been called the “Silent Generation.” But what does the silence mean? What, if anything, does it hide? Or are youth’s elders merely hard of hearing?”

Baby Boomers (1945–64)

Generic use of baby boom is much older than any of these generational names. It’s an Americanism dating to at least the 1870s to mark any uptick in births. The application of the term to the then-expected increase in births following the Second World War dates, as one might expect, to 1945. There had been a short increase in the birth rate following the U.S. entry into the war, but on 4 February 1945 the U.S. Department of Commerce reported this mini-boom was over and to expect a larger one in the year to come: “The Commerce Department reported Saturday night that the Nation’s birth rate, which rose 30 per cent above prewar levels in the year after Pearl Harbor, now is declining and will stay that way until the end of hostilities precipitates another baby boom.”

Generation X (1965–80)

Generation X first appears in December 1952 issue of Holiday magazine, touting an upcoming photo-essay by photographer Robert Capa, although the term would not appear in the photo-essay itself:

“What, you may well ask, is Generation X? […] Our tag for what we believe to be the most important group of people in the world today—the boys and girls who are just turning 21. These are the youngsters who have seen and felt the agonies of the past two decades, often firsthand, who are trying to keep their balance in the swirling pressures of today, and who will have the biggest say in the course of history for the next 50 years.”

Millennials / Generation Y (1981–96)

More successful was Strauss and Howe’s naming of the Millennial generation. From their 1991 book: “At Burrville Elementary, 13ers in older grades found the uniforms slightly humiliating, but the younger kids hardly seemed to mind. These kids in green coats and yellow blouses are the vanguard of America’s MILLENNIAL GENERATION. Cute. Cheerful. Scout-like. Wanted. Not since the 1910s, when midlife Missionaries dressed child G.I.s in Boy Scout brown, have adults seen such advantage in making kids look alike and work together. Not since the early 1900s have older generations moved so quickly to assert greater adult dominion over the world of childhood—and to implant civic virtue in a new crop of youngsters.”

Millennials have also gone by the rather unimaginative Generation Y, as they are the cohort that follows the Gen Xers. Call them Generation Y, because Y comes after X, and maybe because they’re coming of age with the big questions laid out before them.

— Y can’t we go out in the sun?

— Y can’t the AIDS epidemic be stopped?

— Y is the environment in the state it is?

— Y is Canada in the state it is?

— Y can’t I get decent work?

Generation Z (1997–2012)

Of course, Generation Y led to ‘Generation Z,” which appears by 2010, likely due to a lack of a more creative term. Some refer to this generation as “iGen” since they have never known a world without the Internet. Martha Irvine of the Associated Press states, “they are the tech-savviest generation of all time… even toddlers can maneuver their way through YouTube and some first-graders are able to put together a PowerPoint presentation for class.” A teacher’s most complicated struggle with Generation Z is not necessarily how to relate lessons to them, but rather how to prepare these students for careers and jobs that don’t even exist yet.

Generation Alpha (2013– )

Having run out of letters in the Latin alphabet, we turn to Greek for the name of the next cohort. From the Australian newspaper Northern Star of 12 March 2011: “They are smart, cashed-up, career driven and are making their way to a place near you.”

It’s the newest addition to society’s demographic categories—Generation Alpha. Babies born from 2010 are part of this demographic, coming after the digital-native Generation Z and the want-want-want Generation Y. You may note that the same critiques and notes of despair are sounded whenever a new generation comes of age. The “problem with kids these days” has always been and presumably always will be.

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Published by NebraskaFilly

Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

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143 thoughts on “GENERATIONAL COHORTS”

  1. china blocked from acquiring chip technology from the dutch
    FTA
    The Dutch government agreed to block China from having access to chip manufacturing technology, heating up a longstanding conflict over semiconductors with Beijing.

    Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities slammed The Hague and accused the European Union state of siding with the United States in an ongoing chip war.

    The Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Liesje Schreinemacher, told the Dutch parliament on March 8, that the proposed limitations on CCP access to sensitively designed advanced equipment using ultraviolet light, to etch circuits on processor chips, was essential on security and human rights grounds.

    ASML Holdings, which is based in Veldhoven, in the Netherlands, is the world’s only producer of equipment using extreme-ultraviolet light (EUV), to etch microscopically precise circuits onto silicon, allowing them to be packed more closely together, thus boosting their speed and reduces power demand.

    https://slaynews.com/economy/dutch-government-blocks-china-from-access-to-key-semiconductor-technology/

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Man, when I think back to the VERY first desktops and where the technology is now??? It has skyrocketed so fast, it makes my head spin! I only just now connected the work I did waaaay back when I worked for DHR/Quest and Dr. Silberglitt, in the early ’80’s – he studied photovoltaics and silicon chips and I prepared all those technical equations for reports – it ALL applied directly to the process to get what we now have today…..and I had not the slightest clue what it was all about at the time!

      Liked by 2 people

  2. what bullshit! FEMA provides $350Million to the red cross to aid in migrant welfare once they’ve been captured…so the red cross facilitates that with printing maps and tips on jumping trains and crossing the desserts. they create the need that they get paid for.
    FTA
    The non-profit organization is a member of the board of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Food and Shelter Program, where they received $350 million alone from the Department of Homeland Security in February of this year alone. Part of their mission is to provide resources to support migrants who have been captured illegally entering the United States and await processing for their court date.

    This discovery comes at a time when the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reported an overwhelming rise in the number of illegals breaking into the country from the Mexican border. Federal authorities in 2022 reportedly encountered roughly 2.3 million illegals.

    https://thepoliticalinsider.com/the-red-cross-is-providing-maps-to-illegals-showing-them-how-to-effectively-cross-the-border-into-the-united-states/

    Liked by 2 people

  3. NF: Not sure if you’ll be able to read w/o account.

    “Insurers slashed Hurricane Ian payouts far below damage estimates, documents and insiders reveal. A Washington Post investigation has found that some policyholders had their claims cut by more than 80 percent”
    By Brianna Sacks
    March 11, 2023 at 10:06 a.m. EST

    EXCERPT: “FORT MYERS, Fla. — When insurance adjuster Jordan Lee entered the cream-colored house battered by Hurricane Ian, the smell from the rain-soaked carpet made it hard to breathe. Piles of pink insulation covered the worn, white couches, he recalled, and poured from the collapsed ceiling, left gaping from the storm’s 150 mph winds. He photographed debris flecked on the carpet and walls, chunks of roof in the yard, and broken screens and gutters around a pool filled with palm fronds.

    The home, which belongs to retired couple Terry and Mary Sebastian, sits on a canal in Rotonda West, Fla., a coastal community that bore the brunt of Ian when the storm made landfall on Sept. 28. The entire place would need to be dehumidified, the roof completely replaced, the insulation torn out and the tattered pool enclosure rebuilt. It would be about $200,000 to repair the damage, the licensed adjuster calculated in his estimate for Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance Co.

    (Insulation covers furniture and the floor at the Sebastians’ home after the storm. (Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post)

    But when Lee checked in on his report about 10 days later, his stomach dropped, he said. It had been drastically whittled down, with entire portions, such as the one detailing issues in the primary bedroom, removed. The amount of insulation that needed to be redone was cut by half, and his estimate now said that one-third of the roof should be fixed, instead of it being fully replaced. The homeowners were slated to receive a total of $27,000. The changes were made without Lee’s knowledge or consent, he said, but his name was still on the final report, according to documents seen by The Washington Post.

    After major disasters like Ian, insurance companies often bring on third-party firms like Tristar Claim Solutions, an independent adjusting company that Lee worked for as a contractor, to help with the hundreds of thousands of claims. During the insurance claims process, it’s standard for field adjusters, who are trained to assess damaged homes, to collaborate with those back in the office to make minor edits, discuss aspects of the claim and alter line items if, for example, the carrier has evidence that damage was from a prior event, according to adjusters and insurance industry experts. That is how the system is supposed to work.

    But that’s not what has been happening in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, Lee and others said. Instead, Lee and other adjusters contracted by regional insurance carriers say that managers have been changing their work by lowering totals, rewriting descriptions of damage and deleting accompanying photos without their approval. These actions to devalue damage are the latest example of the insurance crisis in Florida.

    After years of more frequent and intense storms, national carriers have pulled back from the market and smaller, regional carriers with smaller financial reserves jumped in. In the wake of Hurricane Ian, those companies have been aggressively seeking to limit payouts to policyholders by altering the work of licensed adjusters, according to a Washington Post investigation. As a result, homeowners are left footing much of the bill for repairs, exposing an untenable gap between the cost of storm damage and what insurers are willing to pay to fix it.”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/03/11/florida-insurance-claims-hurricane-ian/

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Liked by 1 person

  6. Well, I just did my first rinse….interesting and not nearly as bad as I expected nor as complicated. We’ll see if it makes a difference. Sun is peeping thru a bit and temp is up to 37 here now.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. i can’t watch the video obviously but the replies are almost all saying the same thing–fake–i didn’t see it so i can’t say

      Like

  14. this name ALONE should raise some RED FLAGS…Violence in Boston founder and her husband charged with additional attempts to defraud city.
    FTA
    The Massachusetts woman who founded the local nonprofit Violence in Boston and her husband are facing additional fraud charges in connection with schemes to defraud the city of Boston out of COVID-19 relief funds and rental assistance money, according to federal prosecutors.

    The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monica Cannon-Grant and Clark Grant, both of Taunton, have been charged by a federal grand jury in a 27-count superseding indictment that was returned Thursday with three counts of wire fraud conspiracy, 17 counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy and one count of making false statement to a mortgage lending business. Cannon-Grant was also charged with mail fraud, filing false tax returns and failing to file tax returns.
    Advertisement

    Cannon-Grant, 42, was the founder and chief executive officer of Violence in Boston, an anti-violence nonprofit organization formally established in 2017 with the stated purpose to reduce violence, raise social awareness and aid community causes in Boston, among other goals.

    Grant, 39, is a founding director of Violence In Boston and was a full-time employee for a commuter services company from July 2018 until recently, according to federal prosecutors.

    https://www.wcvb.com/article/monica-cannon-grant-and-husband-additional-fraud-charges/43266642

    Liked by 1 person

  15. i don’t believe we REWARD people who break the law–as long as they continue to do so long enough!!
    entire article
    A Delaware man recently discovered while trying to sell part of the property his family has owned for two generations that his neighbor had taken control of the land, and he has lost possession after the neighbor claimed squatter’s rights.

    In 2021, Burton Banks tried to sell part of a property his father had left him near Ocean View, Delaware, but found that his neighbor, Melissa Schrock, had erected a goat pen on part of the property and had been using roughly two-thirds of an acre of the property for decades, Delaware Online reported.

    Banks took Schrock, who claimed squatter’s rights, to court and a judge ruled against him.

    The judge determined that Banks had not been a primary resident of the property for the last 20 years and only occasionally visited from where he lived in Atlanta which, according to Delaware’s adverse possession law, gives Schrock claim to the property after 20 years.

    Burton Banks and Melissa Schrock’s land dispute took place off Lisa Avenue near Ocean View, Delaware. (Shannon Marvel McNaught / USA TODAY NETWORK)

    “It can be shocking because most people don’t know about it,” Widener University law professor Serena Williams told the outlet about squatters rights in the state.

    The case was further complicated by the fact that both properties were owned by individuals for much of the last 20 years who are both deceased, Burton’s father and Schrock’s mother. Schrock’s mother had also been given the land by Burton’s father before he died and passed it down to Schrock when she died.

    “It’s just always been my backyard since i was a kid,” Schrock argued in her counterclaim.

    In February, Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled that Schrock had met the 20-year occupation requirement and Burton had not, so Burton was forced to hand the property title to Schrock.

    The value of the property Burton lost is estimated at $125,000

    “I can’t afford the appeal,” Burton said. “But (I’m) hoping I can at least warn others.”

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/delaware-man-loses-125000-property-squatter-neighbor-after-trying-remove-goat-pen-she-built-it

    Liked by 2 people

  17. “Tucker Carlson Obtains 40,000 Unseen Hours Of Biden Falling Down Air Force One Stairs”
    POLITICS · Mar 11, 2023 · BabylonBee.com

    “U.S. — Sources report Tucker Carlson has obtained 40,000 hours of never-before-seen footage of President Joe Biden falling down the stairs on Air Force One.

    “Hahahaha,” said Mr. Carlson, as he began reviewing footage to release to the public. “Hahahahaahahahahaha!”

    Though a few videos have previously circulated of President Biden losing his long-running battle with stairs, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said security cameras have captured several thousand more hours of Biden’s tumbles. “They were actually stuck on the tarmac for five hours in Poland as Biden plunged down the stairs dozens of times,” said Mr. McCarthy. “I know Democrats are angry about our releasing this footage, but their narrative of Biden having a ‘mostly peaceful’ relationship with stairs just isn’t true. The American people deserve to see for themselves.”

    Doctors who viewed the footage report that President Biden has likely accumulated several hundred concussions from his repeated nosedives. “He might not even have dementia,” said local neurologist Dr. Kelly Meachem. “It could just be the hundreds upon hundreds of concussions he has sustained falling down flights of stairs. I’m surprised the man can even form sentences. Well, I guess he can’t form sentences, but he does get close sometimes – which is sort of impressive.”

    At publishing time, President Biden had spent twenty-fours straight falling down a shopping mall escalator.”

    Liked by 1 person

  18. “Pennsylvania Dem Resigns Amid Sexual Harassment Allegations — State Rep. Mike Zabel allegedly propositioned and stalked colleague”
    Claire Sprang, March 10, 2023

    ENTIRE ARTICLE @ FreeBeacon: “A Pennsylvania state House Democrat resigned from office after three women accused the lawmaker of sexual harassment, the Washington Post reported. Pennsylvania state representative Mike Zabel on Wednesday announced his resignation, saying he wants to “focus on my family and my health.” Among the three women alleging harassment is a fellow state representative, who said that Zabel inappropriately touched her.

    Republican representative Abby Major said she and Zabel were at a bar last November when Zabel touched her, propositioned her, and “was being a creep.” Zabel, who was “clearly intoxicated,” followed Major to her car, forcing her to ask a colleague to walk out with her, she said.

    Zabel is just the latest Democratic lawmaker to face accusations of sexual misconduct. Former Oregon Democratic lawmaker Diego Hernandez resigned amid accusations of coercive sexual harassment in 2021, the Washington Free Beacon reported. Though some colleagues came to his defense, Hernandez quickly resigned, saying he wished to “focus on my health and family.”

    Zabel’s former campaign manager, who was also among those filing complaints against the Pennsylvania representative, voiced concern over Zabel’s alcohol consumption. “My illness has caused some behavior that I regret, and I agree that additional intervention is necessary for me to fully recover,” Zabel wrote in response to the allegations.

    The Pennsylvania House changed its rules recently to allow non-employees to file sexual harassment complaints after a lobbyist said Zabel had victimized her four years ago.”

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Liked by 1 person

  21. I am adding a short daily prayer to the board. I would invite each of you, if you wish, to also add one or maybe two of your own liking. I do not want to stifle anyone but please limit yourself to one or two religious postings. here’s one I found that I liked.

    Like

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