Tony's Blog

Barack Obama will be our third baby boomer president (Obama was born on August 4, 1961). Bill Clinton was our first (August 19, 1946). George W. Bush was number two (July 6, 1946).

76 million Americans were born between 1946 and 1964, the post-World War II period dubbed the "baby boom."  Clinton, Bush and Obama share a place in history as members of a generation born to an America which fought for and won the peace, a prosperous America whose suburban areas saw vacant land morph into a place to call home.

Ohio History Central does a nice job describing Americans' migration from cities to the suburbs, during this period.  "This process increased following World War II. Thanks to the G.I. Bill, many Americans of all races, for the first time, had the ability to attend college and, thus, to earn better salaries. Americans, especially white ones, prospered during World War II, as both men and women found employment to aid the United States' war effort. With the war's conclusion, many workers, especially women, found their positions terminated, but families had accumulated enough wealth to leave the inner cities to move to suburbs. Improvements in transportation, the development of interstates during the 1950s, and the increasing accessibility of cars, all spurred this movement from the cities to outlying neighborhoods. Americans wanted their own homes with green grass. They were increasingly unsatisfied with apartment living, paying their wages to live in someone else's building."

But notice these three presidents were born at the opposite ends of the baby boom. Here's my point, and my question. The baby boom years are not monolithic in their influence. Boomers born at the beginning of this period in the mid-40's and early-50's (Clinton and Bush) were shaped, in part, by a national pride that the U.S. had won the war, and was admired internationally as a super power with a moral core.

For boomers, like Obama, born near the end of this period, early childhood influences were soon to be borne out of the fight, often ugly, and sometimes fatal, for civil rights and an end to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

So, here's what I'm wondering. How was each man's world view shaped by a set of different circumstances that marked the beginning and end of what's considered the same generation?