JIGSAW GENS

Traditionalists — A Legacy of Loyalty & Perseverance

The Silent Generation (“Safe-Builders” or “Traditionalists”) has laid down infrastructure embodying grit and protection

If you’ve never heard of intergenerational literacy, listen up! It’s a recognition of how every generational cohort is diverse and complex. None of them are a monolith. Every generation has reasons to be angry and disgruntled. My ongoing “Jigsaw Gens” series is an effort to foster such compassion.

My first two installments profiled the “Hemingrebels” (aka “the Lost Generation”) and the “GI-Gens” (aka “the Greatest Generation”). Hemingrebels shaped the Roaring Twenties, while GI-Gens kept America afloat during World War II.

Next up: the “Traditionalists” (aka “the Silent Generation”).

Who They Are

Traditionalists were born approximately between 1930 to 1943 — give or take a few years on either end. Although the first major reference to them as the “Silent Generation” was made by Time magazine in December of 1951, that nickname had been floating around within the zeitgeist for awhile at that point. Military veteran Anthony Stolz prefers the term “Depression Babies” for his generation, which he memorializes in his 2001 book.

Other nicknames for Traditionalists could include: Safe-Builders, due to how (as Australians observed, by coining the term “Builders” for them) this generation was responsible for building so many bulwarks of the American safety net, including Social Security expansion, Medicare, and interstate highways; Depression Babies, since, as Stolz points out, a bulk of the Silent Generation was born during, or immediately following, the Great Depression; The Lucky Few, because they had significantly fewer members of their cohort born when compared to the two generations that sandwiched theirs; AfterSooners, seeing how a major trend affecting Traditionalists was the mass migration of Oklahomans to the West Coast; or Radio Babes, in reference to how radio-based entertainment surged during the childhoods and teen years of this generation.

It’s estimated that, as of the date of this writing (July 2023), there are between 19 million to 23 million Traditionalists still living.

What They Went Through

Blogger and Medium author Benjamin David Steele points out how, although they’ve ironically been dubbed as a “silent” group, many of the most high-profile Traditionalists were actually very loud when expressing their beliefs. Members of their generation still compose much of today’s ruling elite, even though their actual numbers have dwindled in terms of office-holding lawmakers.

By the 1910s, abortion was widely illegal throughout the United States. Thus, unlike their parents or grandparents or other ancestors, Traditionalists were born into a world where there was very limited legal access to abortion — unless a woman could obtain medical exemption from her doctor. For this reason, Depression Babies found it to be a culture shock when liberal and progressive Americans (even those from within the Traditionalist generation itself) mobilized on behalf of the earliest efforts to gain legalized reproductive freedoms throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

These Americans were born directly into the poverty and squalor of the Great Depression. They learned habits of frugality from their Hemingrebel and GI-Gen parents — and maintained those mindsets as they proceeded to have children and grandchildren of their own. Alas, many of their genuine accomplishments have gone ignored as American historians focus far more energy on profiling the GI-Gens and the Baby Boomers.

How They’re Misunderstood

Traditionalists were the overlooked “latchkeys” of the Twentieth Century. For them, it wasn’t quite as pronounced as the latchkey status of GenXers would become, given how so many Traditionalists had one parent off fighting in a global war. By contrast, many more Xers had both parents still raising them at home — their sets of parents, unlike those of the Traditionalists, were overworked either by choice or necessity.

Because they didn’t work in significant jobs before turning eighteen, pre-pubescent Traditionalists were closely guarded by their Hemingrebel and GI-Gen elders. In turn, as adults, Traditionalists wanted to protect their own Baby Boomer and GenXer children from the trauma of war and violence. These safetyist norms were emulated by the Boomers themselves when raising Millennials throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Traditionalists strove to appear “respectable” in public. They enjoyed drugs and other vices — but they did so in private. This has created an almost Stepford-like caricature in popular media that is often embraced by right-wing shills who seek to turn it into revisionist history. Conversely, many Traditionalists who rebelled against these puritanical values would soon transform themselves into beatniks or older hippies.

As Mr. Steele cites, many of the most powerful members of the Silent Generation have become reactionary in their golden years. While Traditionalists who identify with the Left were building civil rights and labor union movements, their peers on the Right would come to build the ideologies of the Reagan Revolution and the so-called Moral Majority. Even as Traditionalists lent their talents to improving upon U.S. infrastructure and governmental frameworks, systemic racism and misogyny (amongst other travesties) were allowed to flourish. Yet, the Traditionalists still grew up in a time when their demeanor was perhaps more conservative than their pro-labor ideology. They were indoctrinated by a culture of conformity, rules, and mass media propaganda even while half of them supported liberal or progressive candidates.

In the face of more progressive Traditionalists and Boomers constructing a rampart of resistance to social injustice, Traditionalists preferred to keep up the appearances of “decorum” — whereas Boomers were less concerned with faking politeness in public view.

Why They Matter

Considering how these “Radio Babes” grew up amidst a renaissance of the “talking telegram,” live radio broadcasts provided an avenue for elevating music. This was especially true of rock n’ roll. Yet, radio proved to be a popular outlet for artists ranging from James Brown to Patsy Cline to Buddy Holly to Nina Simone. Soon, vinyl records would be added to the fray.

Musical innovation and public works set the stage for the subsequent activism that’s so often credited to the Baby Boomers. These mainstays were created due to the diligence of Traditionalists. In addition to interstate highways and social safety nets, they mainstreamed resources such as nutrition standards, food security, Little League sports, and youth scouting.

Additionally, familial child care became the norm. As Medium’s Kathleen Murphy observes, the Silent Generation was born into a culture where a lack of stable U.S. child care services necessitated that grandparents step in and fill those roles. Modern-day Traditionalists in America have often picked up that slack by caring for their own grandchildren who hail from the Millennial, Zoomer, and Alpha generations. The trend of grandparents no longer being so easily available (geographically) to help rear their grandkids was a pattern that began to manifest with the Baby Boomer generation.

So many Traditionalists embraced a “bootstraps” mentality to life that had been ingrained in them by their Hemingrebel and GI-Gen elders. They lobbied for much lower tax rates, often unwilling to make the same fiscal sacrifices their own elders had. As a result, a continued American struggle persists over how much of a role the federal government should have in providing citizens with public services — or even when it’s an appropriate role, in the first place.

One final note: Americans born on the cusp of the youngest GI-Gens and the oldest Traditionalists could fall into a microgeneration espousing the values of practicing patriotic frugality alongside of building prosperity. I’d refer to these cuspers as “Golden-Builders” (born approximately between 1925 to 1929).

Golden-Builders include Americans as iconic as Martin Luther King Jr., Barbara Walters, Maya Angelou, B.B. King, and Johnny Carson.

Similarly, those born on the cusp of the youngest Traditionalists and the oldest Baby Boomers would form a microgeneration that I dub the “Silent Nesters” (born approximately between 1944 to 1948). They may blend the habits of performative acquiescence with modernized consumption.

Silent Nesters include such accomplished public figures as Bill Clinton, Dolly Parton, Tom Selleck, Stephen King, and Diane Sawyer.

Perhaps the most famous Traditionalists serving as emblems of the Silent Generation were Elvis Presley, Toni Morrison, Willie Nelson, Mickey Mantle, and Elizabeth Taylor.

But this generation contained a diverse array of many additional icons — noticeably revolutionizing the music scene in much the same way the GI-Gens before them had revolutionized the silver screen.

A list of historical figures who belonged to the Traditionalist generation:

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