The Silent Generation (Born 1925-1945)

[James Nored]

The Generation after the Senior/GI Generation is the "Silent Generation." Here are the characteristics, shaping events, values, etc. of the Silent Generation. Source Material: Generations  by William Strauss & Neil Howe

“Silent” Generation (1925-1945)
- 49 million Born/Immigrated (9% immigrant)
- Children - Boomer and Gen X
- Grandchildren - Millennial

1. Well-Known/Significant Silents
   1. No Presidents from this Generation; instead, failed Presidential candidates Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Jack Kemp, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Presidential advisors such as George Baker
   2. William F. Buckley, Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Martin Luther King, Jr., Sandra Day O’Conner, Clint Eastwood, James Dean, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Woody Allen, Phil Donahue, Jack Nicholson, Barbara Streisand
2. Shaping/Coming of Age Events for Silents
   1. Grew up in churched society 
   2. Born Depression and War (thus, lower in number)
   3. Building of Empire State Building, Golden Gate, Hoover Dam, etc.
   4. Movies - Snow White, Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, etc.; Superman
   5. Dropping of Atomic Bomb
   6. Korean War (1950-1953)
   7. Peace Core (16 percent of Harvard’s 1964 class joined the Peace Core)
   8. McCarthyism
   9. JFK Assassination, MLK and Bobby Kennedy Assassination
3. Later Events/Accomplishments of Silents
   1. Organizational number #2 men (and women); creator of organizations
   2. Major divorce during mid-life and participants in “sexual revolution” (reverse life cycle of experiencing “youth” and indiscretion later in age; felt over-protected in their youth
   3. Later Leaders of Women’s Rights Movement; produced every major leader of the Modern Civil Rights Movement
   4. Grew up in manufacturing world still without modern technology
4. Characteristics/Values of Silents
   1. A “middle generation” influenced by GI generation and their value system at first, then by younger Boomer and their value system later in life
   2. Value structure, organization, bureaucracy, keeping gains of previous generation
   3. Value dialogue and “helping professions” (teaching, medicine, ministry, government)
   4. Frugal, having experienced the depression, but prosperous
   5. Want things done “decently and in order”; value “reverence”
5. Significant Quotes -
   1. ”[Class of] Forty-nine is taking no chances.” - Fortune Magazine
   2. “They are interested in the system rather than individual enterprise.”
   3. “Never had American youth been so withdrawn, cautious, unimaginative, indifferent, unadventurous--and silent.” -- GI Historian William Manchester
   4. “ We had no leaders, no program, no sense of our own power, and no culture exclusively our own.” - Frank Conroy
   5. “80 percent of life is showing up.” - Woody Allen
      

This generation was my parents' generation and that of many of my friends. I can remember in high school so many of my parents' friends getting divorces. It was like an epidemic. The self-discovery that this generation had later in life was very hard on their children--Gen X, the children of divorce. But they also helped usher in the Civil Rights Movement, causing Gen X to largely grow up in a much more racially tolerant world.

What experience have you had with the "Silent" generation? What values should we uphold and emulate? What should we avoid?

[James (Rocky) Curtiss]

the leaders of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, particularly Mario Savio, were from this generation. From this movement rose the Hippie Counter Culture, the anti-War movement, as well as the Civil Rights and Women's Rights movements. Then the Boomers jumped on the band wagon. By the way, I was born in 1944..