Who do you consider 'The Golden Era Generation'?

[FedoraFan112390]

By which I mean, what birth years do you feel constitute those who created, lived and perpetuated (in its time) the Golden Era?

Myself, I feel that the "Golden Era Generation" - those who were most responsible for, and were able to most enjoy/appreciate/experience The Golden Era - was born roughly between 1880 and 1927. A big range, to be sure, but I base this range on those who were of age to either hold command roles in or engage in active fighting during World War II, as well as those who would've had a decent memory of the Great Depression and (in the case of the younger cohort), would've enjoyed the films of Chapman, Bogart, Gable and Bacall and listened to Ragtime, Blues, Jazz and Big Band Swing.

I feel that trio of experiences to a degree can loosely define the Golden Era in terms of events; and as such, they link what would otherwise be a large age range.

The older cohort (let's say those born between roughly 1880 - 1899) largely created and led the conditions and events (good and ill) of the Golden Era; the middle cohort (1900-1920) also helped to create it, as well as experience it; and the younger cohort (1921-1927) experienced and enjoyed the fruits (good and ill) of it.

 

[vitanola]

I'd agree, though I'd move everything a generation earlier, for I see the Era as ending with the closing of the Iron Curtain in 1947. With this attitude, I posit that Wilson, Bryan, Roosevelt, Baker and Johnson were among the genration who laid the groundwork for the Golden Age.

 

[Stearmen]

That's a pretty wide span. That would include my Grandparents and my Parents. People born from 1917 through roughly 1927, are the ones that suffered through the depression and fought WWII. While my grandparents, born in the 19th century only suffered the depression. Of course, they were the ones that lost thousands of kids, that has to be the worse!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm with Vitanola -- if you weren't an adult at the end of WW2, you didn't fully experience the Era. The death of FDR was the beginning of the end, and the ascendancy of the Kennanite worldview in 1945-47 shoveled the dirt onto the coffin, making the events of the next forty years inevitable. Similarly, there wouldn't have been a New Deal era in the thirties if there hadn't been a Progressive Era in the 1910s.

 

[Fastuni]

The death of FDR was the beginning of the end, and the ascendancy of the Kennanite worldview in 1945-47 shoveled the dirt onto the coffin, making the events of the next forty years inevitable.

It put an overly due end to the despicable Western groveling towards Stalinism (resulting directly in the slaughter and enslavement of untold millions of humans), that made the events of the next forty (plus) years inevitable.

In the often sordid world of international power politics G. F. Kennan is among those I hold in relatively high esteem. He was right post-WW2 on Stalinist aims and also later on. A very cautious and clear-minded fellow... he warned against getting too involved in Vietnam, post-1991 he warned against provoking Russia through an eastward expansion of NATO and warned against ill-advised military adventures in the Middle East.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Even Kennan himself, late in life and with the benefit of hindsight, realized that his views of 1945-47 had been just a bit extreme, and questioned whether the nuclear arms race they'd ignited was a particularly good thing for anyone, anywhere. Certainly no Golden Era there, and we're still dealing with the consequences of it.

 

[Fastuni]

Speaks for him to have the ability to reflect.
But I absolve him of that - the policy towards Stalinism 1945-47 wasn't too "extreme".

What would the alternative have been? Let the Communists devour also the rest of Europe, East Asia and the Middle East?
Bad enough that the US turned largely a blind eye to the bloodshed initiated under the Communists and their "bourgeois-democratic" pawns in Central and Eastern Europe 1945-1947.

If we use hindsight... the mistake of the US was under FDR to be so shockingly trusting and submissive towards the Soviet Union.
Obviously Stalin was needed to wrestle down Hitler (conversely he needed the Western allies too for that end), but it was not neccessary at all to give the Communists largely carte blanche well into 1946. A firmer anti-Soviet line already during the war would have spared much human misery and global dissaray.

Also the genuinely democratic left in Europe would have benefitted immensely in the post-war situation, hadn't there been the huge menace of Stalinism that was allowed to flourish all over Europe due to Western inaction and the naive "anti-fascist consensus".
The entirely justified fear of Communism among many ordinary folks made it easy for various right-wing/conservative parties to secure support among large sections of the electorate.
Case in point: without the threat of Communism, the popular, fiercely anti-Communist and anti-Nazi (but also highly critical of the Western allies) German Social Democratic leader Kurt Schumacher would in my assessment have not lost to Adenauer.

...

As to the "Golden Era"... I don't know what's so much more "Golden" about the bloody mess of WW2 as opposed to the post-war conflicts.
Also the pre-war years saw enough misery and war worldwide.

To me the "Golden Era" is roughly 1919 to 1953. "Golden" defined largely by the aesthetics, cultural products and overall flair/style... the history of that era is fascinating, but hardly pretty. To me it is like an exceedingly well-written drama. I have a thing for the era, exactly because of the gritty and cruel reality of it.

 

[vitanola]

That's a pretty wide span. That would include my Grandparents and my Parents. People born from 1917 through roughly 1927, are the ones that suffered through the depression and fought WWII. While my grandparents, born in the 19th century only suffered the depression. Of course, they were the ones that lost thousands of kids, that has to be the worse!

You wouldn't have wanted to tell either of my grandfathers (one born in '67 and the other in '98) that they did not suffer from the Depression! I remember one of my uncles telling me that he was lucky, having been born in 1915 he did not suffer the worst effects of the Depression as did his older brothers.

 

[emigran]

I'd agree that one would have had to be an adult by WW2 to fully enjoy the era as one of its contemporaries

 

[LizzieMaine]

A pretty good argument can be made -- and has been made by many recent researchers -- that FDR wasn't at all naive about Stalin. Rather, he *understood* the ambitions and fears of both Stalin and Churchill, and served as a balance between their two extremes. Seen from that perspective, FDR emerges as the ultimate pragmatist, and it can be argued that the ultimate legacy of his pragmatism, the United Nations, though flawed, is responsible for all humanity not having been blown to atomic vapor decades ago. Had he survived into the postwar era, the atmosphere of mutual distrust and bellicosity that led to the Cold War would have been far less pronounced on both sides. Truman lacked that understanding, and was too shallow a man to really care about developing it -- making him very susceptible to advisors motivated more by ideological purity by than long-view pragmatism. "Roosevelt's Lost Alliances," by Frank Costigliola, published last year by Princeton University Press, goes deeply into this thesis, and makes a very convincing case.

I have a thing for the era, exactly because of the gritty and cruel reality of it.

On this, we agree. It's the overwhelming challenges of the period that make it interesting to me.

 

[Fading Fast]

... "Roosevelt's Lost Alliances," by Frank Costigliola, published last year by Princeton University Press, goes deeply into this thesis, and makes a very convincing case....

Lizzie, did you read "FDR's Folly" by Jim Powell when it came out years ago (10 at least, I think)? I know, respect, but don't agree with many of your views on FDR. I am stating upfront, this is not a "gotcha" question and I have no interest in arguing the politics of FDR with you or anyone, but I am curious if you read a book that got a lot of press at the time and is not favorable to FDR. That's it - not hidden agenda, not trick - just curious if you read it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I did. Wasn't impressed -- it read like a modernized version of the same arguments the NAM was putting out in 1938-40.

 

[Fading Fast]

I did. Wasn't impressed -- it read like a modernized version of the same arguments the NAM was putting out in 1938-40.

Understood. Thank you.

 

[BlueTrain]

You understand that some families never had a golden era. They grew up poor and lived a hard life until they died. Thank heaven for Social Security (just applied myself). I also am tired of hearing about the Greatest Generation who went off and fought WWII. Most of them were drafted. Most of those who went to Vietnam were drafted, too, and the went just the same. My father was 28 when he got drafted. He never even finished grade school. I was 19 when I went in the army. I volunteered but that wasn't doing anything great. My son also volunteered and so did my son-in-law.

My relatives all had vivid (but not decent) memories of the Great Depression. WWII was great for jobs for most of them as only my father was in the service. The rest were all railroad workers. But the boom in my hometown came 30 or 40 years earlier when the railroad built shops there. That was the age of steam and steam locomotives need lots of maintenance. The shops closed in the 1970s and the town literally wilted. A thousand men worked there. The "coal fields" were just to the west of there, which also employed a lot of men, many of whom were immigrants, mostly Italian. I've never heard anyone say anything romantic or nostalgic about coal mining. Railroads, yes, but not coal mining.

 

[GHT]

The Golden Era in fantasy is: Art Deco, sleek, aesthetically pleasing motor cars, Pullman train carriages, Queen Mary Liners, beautiful, made to measure clothing, jazz influenced, swingtime music, pre-war Hollywood, Fred & Ginger. For most though, the reality was very different, it was, as defined by many of the previous postings, tough. We will never know the grinding poverty that the poor endured, but if there's anything to come out of that era, it's the legacy that future generations will never have to suffer similar privations.
One thing that always strikes me as grotesque, it takes a war to create full employment. Some testament to humanity.

 

[BlueTrain]

In that case, full employment could be described as expensive. It's never too late to experience grinding poverty, not that I'm suggesting you'd ever want to.

Even in the small town where I grew up, I thought there were marvels for the eye and still do. Some of the school buildings built before WWI (that's World War One) were very remarkable, architecturally-speaking, and that includes some tiny schools out in the hills of West Virginia. They were probably all built before 1930. Since then, the population has mostly evaporated and the schools are gone or consolidated. The junior high school I went to was the high school my mother graduated from in 1932.

There were two really wonderful buildings in my hometown. One was the county courthouse, liberally adorned with bas-relief sculpture in what I'd call a realistic style (very blocky). The other was across the street and looked rather like a Greek temple like so many civic building around the country. They're still pretty impressive. But there were other little gems here and there, even to include a gas station, now gone. But the charm and appeal of the main business street was the high level of commercial activity on that three-block long stretch of buildings. It included a big hotel that used to host big bands, two motion picture theaters, a federal building which housed the post office, a big church, an A&P, a G.C. Murphy's, another big church, several little men's shops and women's shops and a single department store. There were two drug stores with lunch counters and two or three restaurants. Believe it or not, that was typical of a small town. One block away from the main street was the junior high school, formerly the high school, and one block in the other direction was the grade school. There were two other grade schools in town, too.

Moving on down the street, you passed a furniture store, a sporting goods store that had lots of boats in the rear, a shoe repair shop operated by an Italian, a shop that sold garden tractors, and finally a tavern. By then you had reached the part of town that was already decaying, the part around the train station. By the time I came along, people had quit riding the trains but they were still wearing hats.

People really complained about the traffic and the parking, too. That's no longer a problem on the main street.

 

[Stearmen]

I also am tired of hearing about the Greatest Generation who went off and fought WWII. Most of them were drafted.

In fairness, we will never know how many would have volunteered for WWII! The draft was going so well, that in December of 1942, the Army stopped taking volunteers, unless they were under 18 or over 38. So it is an apple to oranges comparison with Vietnam.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were plenty of draftees who kicked, though. Some were famous people -- the baseball player Ted Williams, for one, fought induction thru the early months of 1942, claiming family obligations entitled him to an exemption, and only gave up his fight when he was mercilessly drubbed as a coward and a slacker by the Boston press. A decade later, when he was called up again for Korea, he complained that he was being singled out for being famous, and expressed his strong opposition to the idea of the draft. Still later, in the early 1970s, when he was managing Washington, a reporter asked him what he thought of the Vietnam draft protests, expecting a strong "damn hippies" response -- and Williams shocked him by agreeing with the protestors and going off on a ferocious rant about the raw deal he got in his own dealings with Selective Service.

All told, about 15,000 American men were convicted of draft evasion during World War II. About 1500 of them were members of religious groups that opposed any involvement in war, but the rest were, for the most part, men who just didn't want to be bothered with it. Interestingly, thru the entire Vietnam period, while more than 209,000 men were brought up on charges of draft evasion, only about 9,000 were convicted.

 

[FedoraFan112390]

All told, about 15,000 American men were convicted of draft evasion during World War II. About 1500 of them were members of religious groups that opposed any involvement in war, but the rest were, for the most part, men who just didn't want to be bothered with it. Interestingly, thru the entire Vietnam period, while more than 209,000 men were brought up on charges of draft evasion, only about 9,000 were convicted.

It must be remebered though, that the draft dodger issue was still such a hot item as late as 1974 that Gerald Ford issued a conditional amnesty program for draft resisters, and it remained a huge issue, with Jimmy Carter campaigning in '76 in part on the promise of a full, unconditional pardon for draft resisters, which he implemented on his first day in office in 1977. The nation was going through way too many other problems in the 1960s and 1970s, I think, to be fully bothered with going after and convicting each and every draft dodger.

 

[BlueTrain]

Naturally, there doesn't have to be just one golden era. I will admit that it's difficult to really appreciate what life was like during any particular decade before you were born. But the period from, oh, around 1890 to the beginning of WWI was sort of a golden era. Some, or perhaps most, of those who helped to create that era were Civil War veterans. They may not have been thinking of it as a Golden Era but it was as good a time to be alive as any other time, perhaps better. No great wars or epidemics, like the Spanish flu, lots of technological advances, the U.S. was becoming a world power and so on.

Anyway, Pollyanna and Green Gables made it seem like a nice time. On the other hand, most of us live through many eras. Time never stands still and those wonderful gingerbread houses always need repainting.