The Baby Boom Generation

The GI Generation and many of the Silent Generation gave birth to the Baby Boomers, who were born between 1945 and 1964. They were also called “War Babies,” because the men returning from WWII really missed their wives and sweethearts. The Boomer birth peak came in 1957 with 4.3 million live births. More people were born in 1957 than in any other year in the history of our nation.

This peak birth year was a full twelve years after the war ended, stretching the “it’s so good to be home” theory to its logical limits. One could argue that the war did more than delay the birth peak of this generation. If anything, it might have become bigger without the war. The ranks of the Boomers swelled to nearly eighty million, and ...

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