The Greatest Generation

After the American Century

Today there are six generations alive in the United States, and they have had quite different historical experiences. The oldest were born before 1927 and in their later years they came to be called the Greatest Generation. My parents, aunts, uncles, and many teachers were part of this cohort, the dominant generation of the American Century. They were shaped by the contrasts between the Roaring Twenties when they were born, the Great Depression of their youth, and World War II, which engulfed them as young adults. The first president they were old enough to hear on the radio was Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945), and his New Deal continued to shape the politics of the US long after his passing. 

The attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

an unforgettable moment for the Greatest Generation

This generation knew exactly where they were when they heard that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and their lives were never the same afterwards. They helped in the immense war mobilization, fought in the Pacific and in Europe, and celebrated D-Day and the defeat of Hitler. They were stunned by the concentration camps of the Nazis and stunned again by the sudden surrender of Japan after the US dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

They feared that after the war the US might slide back into a 1930s-style economic depression. But prosperity followed victory. American industry had not been bombed, and it rapidly retooled to produce new cars, the new televisions, appliances, and a wide range of other consumer goods. Some returning soldiers found work building suburban houses and highways. Millions of other veterans went to university. By the 1950s this generation was enjoying a standard of living well above anything they knew in their childhood. It seemed that prosperity was possible for all, and that the United States was leading the Free World into a better life. By the 1960s, they were in their 40s, and most of them owned their own homes. While they knew the US had some problems, they believed the nation was on course to form a more perfect union.

The end of World War II also brought with it a new dominant role in world affairs. The Greatest Generation provided all the presidents of the Cold War, from 1946 until 1993: Harry Truman (1945–1953), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961), John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969), Richard Nixon (1969–1975), Gerald Ford (1975–1977), Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and George Bush (1989-1993). These leaders had learned that the world was so interconnected that the isolationism the United States had embraced in the 1920s and 1930s was no longer possible. War had disciplined them to make sacrifices for the greater good, and the Greatest Generation supported the establishment of the United Nations, the expensive Marshall Plan that helped Europe recover from World War II, and the creation of a new military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

Indeed, it seemed that they had little choice but to play a major role in world affairs, because both the British and the French empires were in rapid decline, creating a power vacuum. They soon found themselves in a Cold War that took place on every continent, and took the form of foreign aid, military assistance, and exchange programs. In some places a shooting war also broke out, notably in Korea and Vietnam. In their experience, from the 1940s until they retired, the US was always at the center of an international struggle, and they believed they were defending democracy against its enemies on the right and on the left. Many had trouble understanding why younger Americans did not support the Vietnam War. 

In 2021 the Greatest Generation is over 90. They are frail and rapidly passing away, but all Americans have known some of them. Once they danced to Big Band Jazz and listened to Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Judy Garland and a young crooner named Frank Sinatra. They first heard Bing Crosby sing White Christmas in 1942. They enjoyed movie stars like Jimmy Stuart in It’s a Wonderful Life and Humphrey Boggart and Lauren Bacall in The Big Sleep. They read new novels by Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, and Norman Mailer. In the theater, they saw Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, and they enjoyed musicals like Annie Get Your Gun and Oklahoma. Most of the Greatest Generation had retired by the time the older Bush left the White House in 1993. By 2020 the world they were born into had all but disappeared. Yet, it was not forgotten, and many in the five younger generations who are alive today recall them and their times with nostalgia.

This column is adapted from the opening pages of The United (and Divided) States, now available from Akademisk Forlag.  The chapter continues by describing the quite different experiences of the Silent Generation, The Boomers, Generation X, The Millennials, and Generation Z.  These differences have long-term cultural and political consequences. 

And in case you want to know, Joe Biden is the first, and probably will be the only president born into the Silent Generation.

May 4 and the Memory of World War II

After the American Century

World War II ended in Denmark on May 4, 1945. On that night, and ever since, Danes have quietly put candles in their windows. The first time it was spontaneous, but now it is a tradition, a silent witness to the end of their occupation by Hitler and the return to a democratic society. But tonight, as I walked the streets here, I saw few windows with candles. There were some in every block, but less than a third of the apartments and the homes upheld the tradition. 

I cannot help but link this to a news story last week, in the wake of the recent Italian election. The new mayor of Rome is a leader in the New Fascist Party. There was a picture in the newspaper showing his supporters on the steps of a Roman building giving the stiff-armed Nazi salute. Such a thing would not have been possible a generation ago.

Two different nations, at opposite ends of the European Union, both seem to have forgotten the horrors of the past. Time does not heal wounds that are forgotten or denied but only covered up to fester. It is important to remember. It seems quite a few Italian voters and Danish homeowners do not. 

I was not yet born in 1945, but I will be lighting candles on the evening of May 4, 2009.

Christmas and Americanization

Traditionally, we try to push aside gloom and doubts to celebrate Christmas. I sing in a choir, and we have done our part of spreading good cheer, with no less than four concerts during the past two weeks. The music chosen is a good index to the content of the services. The text for most of the hymns comes in fairly direct fashion from the New Testament, whether in Danish, English, or Latin. Yes, Latin is still a living language when it comes to ecclesiastical affairs. We have a work by Palestrina in Latin, for example, and one work with a text in delightfully garbled Old English mixed up with Latin phrases. German hymns are noticeably absent from the repertoire of the choirs I know, and it seems likely that this is an effect of World War II. Occupation did not endear the Germans to the Danes, who frequently perform Handel's Messiah, in English of course, while a performance of Bach's Christmas Oratorio is far more rare.

The prominence of English should not be mistaken for Americanization, as the pieces chosen by most choirs are from British composers. In the case of the Odense Motet Kor, which I sing with, the earliest British work is by William Byrd, in a series that ends with Benjamin Brittain, John Carter, and Vaughn Williams. American Christmas music, as experienced in Denmark, belongs on the street or the department store, where I hear Bing Crosby croon about that white Christmas we seldom have here and numerous versions of Rudolf. So, the uplifting religious sounds are English, inspired in good part by Cambridge University traditions, while the bouncy and sentimental tunes are American, much the same as one might hear in the US.

The most powerful musical tradition, however, remains Danish. A whole host of songs, both religious and secular, have been composed over the centuries. Some of these melodies seem to me, at least, to be drawn from abroad and reworked into Danish with a new text, but if so they have been thoroughly assimilated. Virtually all Danes seem to know this musical tradition, and on December 24 they will be singing with enthusiasm around their Christmas trees, which are covered with flickering candles - not electric bulbs. These little fires all over a tree that is rapidly drying out are a definite fire hazard, but consider that most families insist on dancing around the tree, with many chances to brush against the limbs and set them waving. And note that some (well, many) of the adults are not really dancing but more staggering around the tree after eating and especially drinking quite a lot, and you have the recipe for conflagration. Yet in fact, I have never seen an accident, which may prove that a higher power is benevolently looking down on the giddy proceedings. Just in case, the Danish family typically has a bucket of water at the ready.

For anyone out there who thinks that Americanization is washing over the world with little resistance, Danish Christmas suggests otherwise. The songs are European, the mountain of protein on the table is usually NOT a turkey, but far more likely a duck, a goose, or pork. And the rituals of the day are all local traditions, too. For example, after the family circles the tree for a while, the youngest child leads them in a line-dance through the entire house. And the presents are usually opened not on the 25th, but after dinner on the 24th. In fact, the Danes love Christmas so much they have an extra dinner on the 23rd. They give it a name - "Little Christmas Eve" - and consider it to be almost as sacred to family life as the following night.

Finally, what about the presents under the tree? Some of them are American, of course, and these are often digital, whether computer software, DVDs of Hollywood films, or a new Ipod. But while a survey would be required to confirm my hunch, I strongly suspect that Christmas is a time of patriotic giving. Danish books and music seem prominent in the store windows, and many presents are expensive, high-quality examples of Danish design. To put this another way, I wonder if the American presents might prove to be a bit ephemeral, while the Danish gifts may well be displayed or used for years.

As for me, Christmas will be in Connecticut this year. It is time for some personal re-Americanization after being immersed (and thoroughly enjoying) several consecutive years of the marvelous Danish Christmas.