With No Apologies to Tom Brokaw: the Baby Boom and Its Meaning in History
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With No Apologies to Tom Brokaw: The Baby Boom and its Meaning in History By Terry L. Shoptaugh October 2010 Roland and Beth Dille Distinguished Faculty Lecture With No Apologies to Tom Brokaw: The Baby Boom and its Meaning in History Terry L. Shoptaugh August 2010 Abstract: This paper focuses on the ―baby boom generation‖ (those children born in the United States between 1946 and 1964) as a case study of generation-identity. The paper reviews the origin of the “boom,” describes the impact it had on American society, reviews the controversies surrounding the “boomer generation,” and suggests how this group might be remembered by historians in the future. With No Apologies to Tom Brokaw: The Baby Boom and its Meaning in History A few years ago, rock musician Ian Williams was asked if he created all his music to suit the tastes of his principal audience, Generation X. He said, ―I don't like giving names to generations. It's like trying to read the song title on a record that's spinning.‖ William‘s remark has been widely repeated because it struck a chord with those who dislike the idea of labeling people who are still alive. It‘s easy in 21st century America to mention this generation or that generation and expect everyone to understand what you mean. But in real terms it is very, very difficult to define a generation. Certainly parents have children who have children, and so on; generations of a family thus exist. But people are born and die all the time. So beyond the scope of a single family and its progeny, what exactly constitutes a generation? Historians routinely write of the Founding Fathers or those who fought in the American Civil War or those who grew up during the Great Depression. Many writers and speakers refer to these vast groups as generations. Yet Benjamin Franklin was born more than fifty years before James Monroe, the last president who was part of the American Revolution, Still, Monroe, like Franklin, is regarded as a Founding Father. Similarly Dwight Eisenhower was almost thirty years older than my father, one of the soldiers under Ike‘s command in Europe in 1944. Both are considered part of the ―Greatest Generation‖ in books about World War II. Beyond one year in Europe however, their lives and experiences were very different.1 So what exactly does a generation mean in American culture? What significance does it have? It may help an understanding of these questions by noting that Ian Williams‘s answer was in essence a marketer‘s reply, aimed toward assuring his listeners that his music was not intended for just one specific audience but was accessible to everyone. It is very common in contemporary American society for books, articles, motion pictures, web sites, blogs, and now tweets to be employed as marketing tools, aiming their contents at a ―generation‖ of buyers who will surely want to purchase something, indeed must buy something because it is part of ―your generation.‖ We have for example Generation X, which one book tells us will ―save the world.‖ And on another hand we have the ―Greatest Generation,‖ so named because never again will another group of Americans save the world as this one did. And of course we have the Baby Boomers, which have been praised as an even greater generation than the greatest generation, but at the same time has been condemned as being so ―selfish, shallow, greedy and egotistic‖ that it has ruined the future for all who will come after it.2 In confronting these claims it is well to ask: who is selling what, who are they trying to sell it to, and why? Pandering to buyers is a normal part of American culture. Baby Boomers, for example, make up 78 million generally solvent and reliable consumers.3 Should it be a surprise then that these thousands of books, magazines, web sites, blogs and tweets now exist to cater to this enormous market? No. This is the richest, spending-est nation in the world. Few salesmen in America would overlook the chance to sell something to the largest ―generation‖ market in American history. But how significant, then, are generations to the study of the nation‘s past? And if so, how are generations significant? What can an historian decide is common to all Baby Boomers, what is significant about those common factors, and what can be inferred from these factors that makes for a fair judgment? This is by no means easy to do. Recently, the retired telejournalist Tom Brokaw tried to do it in his book Boom!: Talking about the Sixties. The book sold very well and thus met the market test. But Brokaw was criticized for relying too much on the memories of celebrities in his text and for unfairly comparing Baby Boomers to their parents, the subject of his previous book, The Greatest Generation. Many readers thought that Boom was rather shallow, that it lacked context on several subjects, like civil rights, the draft, the Chicago convention of 1968, and the Great Society programs. Brokaw‘s method in creating the book made such reviews almost inevitable, for he decided to hold a ―virtual reunion‖ (meaning filmed interviews) with a ―cross-section of the Sixties crowd‖ (meaning people he knew well from his days with NBC). Then by asking them questions like ―what seemed so important [in the sixties] and seems foolish now‖ or ―who were the winners and who were the losers‖ in that era, he had, with his own personal memories, a book. Faced with an era of much controversy and even greater moral ambiguity, Brokaw‘s did not do much to clarify matters, which may explain why he settled for a tepid statement that the sixties helped to create ―hardened ideological and partisan positions‖ that still influence the nation.4 The criticism leveled at Brokaw carried a clear warning to those who would write about the living – if you want praise from your audience, write nice things; if you don‘t, expect difficulty. Many others have written about the Baby Boom, but virtually all have been lambasted in one way or another for oversights and bias that readers have perceived in their conclusions.5 It is therefore imperative to note some of the most important parameters of the Baby Boom. First, it is important to explain what the boom was. The boom was a sudden rise in births rates. But, as we shall see, the identification of those born in the boom as making up ―a generation‖ originated as a way to market goods and services for this mass of new customers. Second, the birth explosion coincided with the fortunate economic situation that the United States enjoyed from 1946 to the late 1960s. This in turn had an indelible impact on how they became the target of marketing and how both prosperity and the generation ―tag‖ subsequently influenced the outlook of boomers. Closely tied to this marketing was the burgeoning American media. All media, but especially television, relied heavily on presenting information in compressed forms, using easily comprehended metaphors and ―tags‖ to tell a story or make a point. It was therefore very easy for media outlets to seize on the ―boom‖ as a quick way to refer to complex forces at work during the fifties and sixties. Boomers in turn were entranced by television. Television informed their views of the world almost from infancy. Television also encouraged boomers to act, almost instinctively, on the belief that ―things happened‖ through dramatic actions, a view that had great influence on the events of the 1960s. Finally, it is vital to remember that whatever else Baby Boomers are, they have consistently reflected many of the most common values of American culture. As such, boomers were and still are influenced by the idea of the American Dream. Future historians then will find the boomers‘ place in America‘s history in what the boom was; in the economic setting in which it occurred; in the impact of a highly developed media; and in the commonly held American Dream of making life better than it was before. The Baby Boom Defined To the first question then -- what was the baby boom? It begins with the fact that between 1946 to 1964 there was an enormous increase in the birth rate.6 Indeed, there were marked increases in birth rates across the globe in the wake of World War II. The U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, Sweden, and Hungary had birth booms. By the mid- 1960s four out of every ten of the citizens in these nations were under the age of twenty. The full reasons for this rise in birth rates are still being debated, but delayed marriages and suppressed births due to economic depression and war certainly contributed, as did improvements in nutrition and health care after the war ended. A lot of babies were born in a comparatively short span of time and as a result the economics and cultures of the countries involved in the boom were subjected to sudden and significant stresses.7 Let the Good Times Roll – Prosperity and the Boom The baby boom happened during one of the grandest realizations of the American Dream – that endless pursuit of a good life that is measured by what we do and how well we succeed.8 Thomas Jefferson wrote that all people had natural rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From the moment that European colonists arrived on these shores in search of ―free land,‖ the pursuit of happiness in America has leaned heavily toward prosperity.