# The Lost Generation



## Eren Jaegerbomb (Nov 13, 2015)

The Lost Generation were a generation of people born between 1883-1900. "Officially" the term refers to a generation of American writers who came of age during WWI. Personally, I'm just going to use it for any and all people who were born from 1883-1900. (Really, I think it should be).

I just want this to be a general thread/discussion about the people of this generation, and the times they grew up in.
IMHO I've talked to lot's of people who are interested in the 50s/60s, (which there is nothing wrong with that); but not as many who are interested in earlier modern time periods. (I'm also interested in the 18th century, but I'll save that for another day).

Anyway, If you have any interesting stories to share, please do. Or if there's something you'd like to discuss, just say so...

Hmm to start off....

What 'things' do you think define this generation? 
Obviously the war and some new technologies, what else can you think of?

PS. I feel sad that the world has lost so many great people...


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## Miss Thevious (Nov 19, 2015)

This is essentially the generation of my great grandparents, though a few were slightly younger. Unfortunately the last of them died in the early 90's. I don't think I've personally gotten to know anyone born much before the 20's, but I do find the generation utterly fascinating. I imagine these people to have experienced greater changes in their lifetime than those born during any other era. Could you imagine being born without indoor plumbing or electricity, and in your eldest years owning a color TV with cable and a VCR? Because that is the reality for those who lived into old age. Many would have had a grandparent, perhaps even a parent, who served in the Civil War. And many would have served in WWI or had a child in WWII, they could have even served then themselves. Then a grandchild sent to Vietnam. Imagine being stuck between the Civil War and Vietnam? Truly how wild. I realize this is largely US-centric, but generally the changes in culture and lifestyle must have been incomprehesible. As a small child, people would have worn top hats and long skirts with bustles. Their childhood may have been colored with trips to the movies and the first bits of mass pop culture. By their young adulthood, they may have been flappers, or club goers. Can you imagine what those top-hat-wearing, civil-war-fighting elders must've thought of that? These are the people who would take the brute of the Great Depression. And the ones who would embrace technology and provide us with commercial airlines and packaged food. They would witness the hippie movement, some even got to witness MTV. To get to experience the twentieth century like that was entirely unique and no other generation probably will see that much change ever again.


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## Eren Jaegerbomb (Nov 13, 2015)

My great grandparents were also from that generation.
Of course I never met them. Well, on one side of my family. I did meet my maternal great grandparents but that was once and I was only 10. Its not like I ever knew them.... I never saw them again after that.

All of the changes over 90 (1900-1990) years must have been an absolutely amazing change to see. 
I kind of get jealous of it sometimes... In a way that, nothing is really exciting or new anymore.


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

That was my grandparents' generation. My grandparents were all immigrants and they had interesting accents. My grandfather came to the United States and went to the World's Fair. Someone asked him if he liked to eat hotdogs. My grandfather didn't speak much English at the time. He said, "Oh no. I don't eat dogs." He later owned a shoe store and I think that his business survived the Great Depression. My grandfather died in 1983 at the age of 95.


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## ZeldaFan20 (Aug 28, 2014)

MissAl said:


> This is essentially the generation of my great grandparents, though a few were slightly younger. Unfortunately the last of them died in the early 90's. I don't think I've personally gotten to know anyone born much before the 20's, but I do find the generation utterly fascinating. I imagine these people to have experienced greater changes in their lifetime than those born during any other era. Could you imagine being born without indoor plumbing or electricity, and in your eldest years owning a color TV with cable and a VCR? Because that is the reality for those who lived into old age. Many would have had a grandparent, perhaps even a parent, who served in the Civil War. And many would have served in WWI or had a child in WWII, they could have even served then themselves. Then a grandchild sent to Vietnam. Imagine being stuck between the Civil War and Vietnam? Truly how wild. I realize this is largely US-centric, but generally the changes in culture and lifestyle must have been incomprehesible. As a small child, people would have worn top hats and long skirts with bustles. Their childhood may have been colored with trips to the movies and the first bits of mass pop culture. By their young adulthood, they may have been flappers, or club goers. Can you imagine what those top-hat-wearing, civil-war-fighting elders must've thought of that? These are the people who would take the brute of the Great Depression. And the ones who would embrace technology and provide us with commercial airlines and packaged food. They would witness the hippie movement, some even got to witness MTV. To get to experience the twentieth century like that was entirely unique and no other generation probably will see that much change ever again.


Funny thing about that, I stumbled upon these old videos on YouTube the other day that showcased what NYC used to look during the turn of the 20th century 











Its pretty bizarre how the members of the Lost Generation, were children during this time period, lived to see the city look like this:


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## ShadowsRunner (Apr 24, 2013)

I believe there's been a few other generations where "lost" had been applied to them. 

It has something to do with the economy and the like. I believe Gen X has been considered this many times and oddly enough, Gen Y which came right after (or at least half of it) so I don't get how that works. I think it's kind of a bum term to call people.

There's been some before that as well that were considered "lost" I think and not only the one's listed above. My parents are both at the start of Gen X though, and it feels sort of being being so in between Generations. I don't know if Gen X parents had more of a progressive mentality but my parents certainly did not but yet I am kind of between Gen Y and Z...


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## Miss Thevious (Nov 19, 2015)

Cool videos @ZeldaFan20 I love that kind of stuff! I was just looking at old photos with my grandma for a few hours the other day, specifically trying to find people of this generation. It was funny to see my great grandma, born in 1900, wearing a regular bathing suit at the beach in the 40's. Meanwhile her sister in law, about fifteen years older, was dressed fully in clothes. Now that may have been a personal preference, but my guess is that she was just old enough to have missed the whole flapper mentality. It's awful funny though to hear my grandma talk about "old fashioned" these people were to her. Many of the women still never wore pants, and many of the men still always wore hats. Apparently my great grandmother was still shouting at the kids in the 1970's and 80's to put on a coat so they wouldn't catch "the death of pneumonia". We laugh about it now, but these must have been some nervous people! What a lot of death and destruction they had to endure, really.


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## ZeldaFan20 (Aug 28, 2014)

MissAl said:


> Cool videos @ZeldaFan20 I love that kind of stuff! I was just looking at old photos with my grandma for a few hours the other day, specifically trying to find people of this generation. It was funny to see my great grandma, born in 1900, wearing a regular bathing suit at the beach in the 40's. Meanwhile her sister in law, about fifteen years older, was dressed fully in clothes. Now that may have been a personal preference, but my guess is that she was just old enough to have missed the whole flapper mentality. It's awful funny though to hear my grandma talk about "old fashioned" these people were to her. Many of the women still never wore pants, and many of the men still always wore hats. Apparently my great grandmother was still shouting at the kids in the 1970's and 80's to put on a coat so they wouldn't catch "the death of pneumonia". We laugh about it now, but these must have been some nervous people! What a lot of death and destruction they had to endure, really.


Wow that's amazing! Yeah since she was born in 1900 I'm sure she vividly remembered the Panic of 1907, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, WWI (heck her peers would've been the youngest to serve), Women's Suffrage, The Roaring Twenties, & Black Tuesday which started the Great Depression. By 1930 she was already 30 and lived through such a trans formative in human history! I wouldn't be surprised if she remembered a time when a horse and buggy was still the standard on how most commoners traveled and that gradual transition to the automobile becoming more and more common. It really makes you wonder if the changes between any other 30 year period, lets say 1987-2017, are really as trans formative?


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## VinnieBob (Mar 24, 2014)

mi mudders mudder was born in 1889 and died in 1995
what she witnessed in her life time was absolutely amazing
she was born when 98% of america had no indoor plumbing/lighting, the horseless carriage etc
and witnessed 2 world wars, the atomic bomb, commercial flight, landing on the moon
inner net, cel phones, etc
no other generation will experience the technological advances as hers


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## Laeona (Feb 20, 2012)

I've been doing research on a family that came from that time period, and all I have to say about that generation is "adaptable", in a way that I think puts other generations to shame. I don't think I could call them the "lost generation" at all.

They saw our culture go from an agricultural lifestyle to an industrial whirlwind, where cities blossomed and immigration exploded.

Benito Mussolini, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh, come from this generation, and they were world shakers, no doubt about it. Joseph P. Kennedy is also from this generation, and he's the father of all the Kennedy's that impacted our world so much in the mid 1900's. J. Edgar Hoover is in there, too.

The movie industry came about, first silent films, then "talkies", and finally color. Louis B. Mayer, Darryl F. Zanuck, and three of the four Warner Bros. are, yup, you guessed it, also part of that group. They made huge business conglomerations that shot thousands of actors and actresses to stardom.
Some of the most remembered actors and actresses came from this generation, like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglass Fairbanks, Buster Keaton, Humphrey Bogart, Fred Astaire, almost all the cast of "The Wizard of Oz", Abbott and Costelloa, and all 3 Stooges. 

Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Jim Thorpe, Hank Wilson....all sports legends from that generation.

Amelia Earhart, yup, her too.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, TS Elliot, Margaret Mitchell, Alfred Hitchcock, Pearl S. Buck, Dale Carnegie, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis...all from that generation. Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein, Enzo Ferrari, the list goes on and on. And what would life be like today without Colonel Sanders?

The father from the family I'm studying grew up in a city and was caught being truant. He was sent to a school set up to teach boys how to become productive members of society. I guess it worked. He bought a house on a main road and built a small barber shop and restaurant right outside the house. Eventually he expanded to have an ice cream shop, a gas station, and a larger restaurant. He died rather young, at the age of 45, but he typified his generation: he adapted and embraced changes as they came, and was rather successful in his endeavors.

The generation before them might have been doing a lot of the inventing, but this "lost" generation were the ones taking those inventions and seeing how far they could go with them, and doing amazing things that wowed the world. And so, when those great catastrophes happened, like the Depression and the World Wars, they rose to the occasion and helped find ways to get through it all. And they helped us find joy and inspiration through it all.

Wow. I think they're my favorites now


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## piece in quite (Aug 10, 2015)

ZeldaFan20 said:


> Funny thing about that, I stumbled upon these old videos on YouTube the other day that showcased what NYC used to look during the turn of the 20th century
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just so you know, since I scrolled on this thread a couple of days ago and saw your videos, I've been having an addiction over vintage footage of city living.

I am partly jealous of those that lived in the 70s; everything looks so stylish.


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## Siggy (May 25, 2009)

Resiliency comes to mind when I think of this generation. My grandparents on one side and great-grandparents on the other were immigrants. It took quite a lot of mental stamina to go through the Great depression and two world wars.


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## Miss Thevious (Nov 19, 2015)

ZeldaFan20 said:


> Wow that's amazing! Yeah since she was born in 1900 I'm sure she vividly remembered the Panic of 1907, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, WWI (heck her peers would've been the youngest to serve), Women's Suffrage, The Roaring Twenties, & Black Tuesday which started the Great Depression. By 1930 she was already 30 and lived through such a trans formative in human history! I wouldn't be surprised if she remembered a time when a horse and buggy was still the standard on how most commoners traveled and that gradual transition to the automobile becoming more and more common. It really makes you wonder if the changes between any other 30 year period, lets say 1987-2017, are really as trans formative?


I suppose the internet has drastically changed things in the past 30 years, but it's so hard to compare. While it's certainly been revolutionary, things don't look or really "feel" all that different. Realistically we could all still live just fine if we had to go back to 1980's technology. I mean, my Comcrap internet goes out all the time. Yeah it's annoying but hey, I just put on the regular TV! But say when the power goes out every few years, and I can't shower or flush the toilet, damn that sucks! It's a state of emergency, there's no work or school, etc. Life just stops. It seems like for us in modern times things just get more comfortable and convenient, but back then, a few years meant the difference between things being completely possible or not. 

It's kind of unfortunate but at this point, I just hope we don't _regress_. I expect the changes that occured in my childhood to be some of the biggest I'll ever see. Perhaps though we will see a lot with social changes instead.


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

People were still slaves, the railroad revolutionized how people traveled from one part of the continent to the next. The _Lost Generation_ symbolizes the current _Millennial Generation,_ in that we're still slaves only.. we're perpetual slaves to debt, to health insurance companies, we don't essentially own the land we live on, and the internet is the railroad to what's to come in the near future. People were using cocaine habitually in Coca Cola, and the internet is also the new addiction.

When I think of the lost generation, I think of the elders who survived the Great Depression. Sad stories to hear, yet humbling.

With science in the coming of age, I hope we can find alternative ways to survive, and I wish the older generations cared more about the younger generations' survival.. after all, when you're gone your money won't mean anything if you haven't made a positive impact. 

In the end, it's us, the millennials who are going to have to fend for ourselves and future gens.. a little bit of thoughtfulness, love and consideration would be much appreciated.. clean air, clean water, clean soil. _Basic survival needs._


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## He's a Superhero! (May 1, 2013)

I'd like to know why they also call this generation the "Generation of 1914". Does anyone know the answer to this?


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## California Kid (Dec 5, 2013)

He's a Superhero! said:


> I'd like to know why they also call this generation the "Generation of 1914". Does anyone know the answer to this?


It's because they were the generation who fought in WWI.


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

The casualty rate of World War I was horrific. So many young men were lost and their wives and girlfriends were left to struggle through life with broken hearts.


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## VinnieBob (Mar 24, 2014)

Garden Gnome said:


> The casualty rate of World War I was horrific. So many young men were lost and their wives and girlfriends were left to struggle through life with broken hearts.


as true with any war
back in early 70's after school i would walk a mile to the nursing home where me dear mudder worked
while i was waiting i would play games [chess, checkers, cards etc] with the residents
my fondest memory there was with a gentle man who served in the first world war
walter was his name

how'z the weather your way G.G.?
we be gotten nuthin our way
red field in oswego county got 8 foot of snow last week


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## Glenda Gnome Starr (May 12, 2011)

It is just cold here. We had a little bit of snow. It's enough to look like powdered sugar on cake. That is about it. Eight feet! Even by Buffalo standards, that is a massive amount of snow. When we had a big seven foot snowfall in one week in, I think, 2000, the National Guard was called in to help with snow removal! It was amazing to see that much snow in one place.

When I was in high school, I was a "candy striper" in a nursing home. I wore a cute little uniform with a candy stripe pattern. I made friends with an elderly lady, named "Miss Alice." She told me stories. I've always loved old people because they tell such great stories. 



Vinniebob said:


> as true with any war
> back in early 70's after school i would walk a mile to the nursing home where me dear mudder worked
> while i was waiting i would play games [chess, checkers, cards etc] with the residents
> my fondest memory there was with a gentle man who served in the first world war
> ...


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## VinnieBob (Mar 24, 2014)

Garden Gnome said:


> It is just cold here. We had a little bit of snow. It's enough to look like powdered sugar on cake. That is about it. Eight feet! Even by Buffalo standards, that is a massive amount of snow. When we had a big seven foot snowfall in one week in, I think, 2000, the National Guard was called in to help with snow removal! It was amazing to see that much snow in one place.
> 
> When I was in high school, I was a "candy striper" in a nursing home. I wore a cute little uniform with a candy stripe pattern. I made friends with an elderly lady, named "Miss Alice." She told me stories. I've always loved old people because they tell such great stories.


we are they now:laughing:
oswego got 14 foot over the course of 3 day's about 5 y/a
in '73 mi poppa just bought a new ford esquire LTD station wagon with the paneling
it was sodus point early january i remember waking up to 6 foot of snow
the only visible part of my fodders car was about 2 inches of the antenna 
we had to crawl out of my bedroom window, climb onto the porch and slide down the drift in order to shovel to clear a path so we could make a path to the front door
the state plows could not plow the roads so the national guard had to bring in large bull dozers to clear the road
to make matters worse that summer the state did not factor in the harsh winter and under estimated the amount of water to release in the saint lawrence and the water level was up to our front porch
me and a friend grabbed a row boat and were harpooning carp in the flooded road


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## shameless (Apr 21, 2014)

I work at a convent essentially 33% of my job is to be one of those people you imagine on a movie plot who goes to engage and socialize elders and ask them about their life time. Actually a really fucken cool job I might say. Of all the jobs I have had this is the neatest.

Anyways I do not think they are lost at all. Obviously the eldest I care for are on the tale end of that and more so the younger siblings or children to the generation. But close enough. What stands out to me in any of the people over 90 I have had the privilege to get to know is they are extremely modest people. Modest in lifestyle as well as attitude. Very satified and appreciative with the basics of life. They really appreciate food. They hate waste. They believe in conserving energy. Its harder (not impossible but a challenge) to find ones who have memories of recreation. Many were servants of what needed to be done to get by and make ends meet. 

They often talk about being lucky enough to be gifted a family bicycle shared among many siblings usually a dozen roughly. Most speak very highly of their parents and their parents sacrifices for the family ironically while pairing in stories of a few memorable lickening as they put it (that did not kill them they will always insert). 

Back then a pear was a treat the level of candy (not a forced 'healthy' food). 

They often talk about stories of walking 3 miles or more to bus stops which would take them to old one room school houses 'country school'. 

It was essential they knew how to farm, butcher, do carpentry sew, cook, clean and garden because purchasing store bought items was either a luxury or for ingredients. 

Piano is what they often reference as what they bonded around or with outside a radio. 

Although they speak sentimental and fondly of their loved ones they also spoke very matter of a fact about illness and injury being high risks of death which took people young. 

They feel most rewarded with a purpose and doing something to contribute to society or family. Most of what they did was more so what they felt called upon to do out of necessity and duty for the betterment of everyone more so than personal goals of enhancement. 

Many told me stories about how around the depression area the eldest children stayed home longer past becoming adults to help earn money for the homes and sacrificed their independence or personal gain to help the parents and younger siblings, often. 

They speak highly of ballrooms and getting dressed up for dances. 

Anyways yeah not lost imo, just very modest, humble, civil servants by majority.


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## strawberryLola (Sep 19, 2010)

^Their individual narratives contain an important piece of history younger generations can appreciate and learn from.


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## backdrop12 (Dec 11, 2012)

To believe that one silent generation member ( also last living person of the 1800s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Morano ) is alive ( and also her predecessors ) shows how health conscious that generation was . 

They have experienced so much, were great innovators , and had full of life and culture. we also got our greatest actors and comedians from the lost generation. They were just fantastic .


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## Miss Thevious (Nov 19, 2015)

This week's episode of "Timeless" was called "The Lost Generation" if anyone's interested. They went back to the 20's and discussed for a minute whether the generation was truly lost.


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## lolalalah (Aug 1, 2015)

Related to that 'lost generation', I know my family from my father's side back in those times had a mill: according to my grandparents, a couple of young people came to this village near my old hometown at the end of the the nineteenth century, divided the land among themselves and gave themselves a name (my family name). They all built and worked for a big mill that had the clan name. Raised cows, horses, swine, sheep. They liked tobacco and enjoyed dancing... common people of rural places back before the WWI. (note: I am European, and my country at said time used to be a kingdom) Whenever I visit the village I am engulfed in that old atmosphere, like every countryman from that place is still in touch with their ancestors and they tell tales of those people.

I searched through my home town archives and found these 
* *





here Archives





ArminMuffinArlert said:


> PS. I feel sad that the world has lost so many great people...


Me too. There's one example that stands out in my mind: she was a very young and ambitious woman who fought on the front lines in the WWI, Ecaterina Teodoroiu. People gave her the nick name Joan D'Arc. We have a statue of her in the centre of my hometown. My grandmother told me how even long after the woman died, during the wwii, people would talk about her a lot because she was their hero.


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