Greatest Generation
The cohort of Americans who came of age during the Great Depression and served or supported the Allied effort in World War II.
Tom Brokaw: An American journalist and author who anchored NBC Nightly News and wrote about Americans who lived through the Depression and World War II. His 1998 book popularized the name Greatest Generation.
United States home front during World War II: The civilian life, production, mobilization, and social change in the United States during World War II. Millions contributed through factories, farms, and communities rather than military service.
GI Bill: U.S. legislation providing education, housing, and other benefits to many returning World War II veterans. Its benefits helped reshape education, homeownership, and postwar opportunity for millions of veterans.
Silent Generation: The cohort commonly defined as people born from 1928 to 1945, following the Greatest Generation and preceding baby boomers. Its members were younger during World War II and generally came of age in its aftermath.
Lost Generation: A cohort of writers and others shaped by World War I and its aftermath, especially in the 1920s. Its name and literary associations preceded Brokaw’s framing of an American wartime cohort.
Women in World War II: Women’s military and civilian roles in the global conflict of 1939–1945. Women’s wartime service and labor were central to the cohort’s support for the Allied effort.
Baby boom: A marked rise in birth rates following World War II, especially from 1946 to 1964 in the United States. Many members returned to civilian life as the postwar baby boom began.
Baby boomers: The generation born during the postwar rise in births, commonly dated 1946–1964 in the United States. They were largely children of the wartime cohort rather than participants in its formative events.
Great Depression: A worldwide economic crisis that began in 1929 and brought prolonged unemployment and hardship. Economic hardship formed the formative childhood and young-adult experience in the label’s definition.
Tuskegee Airmen: The Black American military aviators and support personnel who served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Their service illustrates the generation’s contributions amid segregation and racial barriers.