Lost Generation

[1][2][3] Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the term, and it was subsequently popularized by Ernest Hemingway, who used it in the epigraph for his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises: "You are all a lost generation.

[6] In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, Western members of the Lost Generation grew up in societies that were more literate, consumerist, and media-saturated than ever before, but which also tended to maintain strictly conservative social values.

[8] Many felt that "the flower of youth and the best manhood of the peoples [had] been mowed down",[9] for example, such notable casualties as the poets Isaac Rosenberg, Rupert Brooke, Edward Thomas, and Wilfred Owen,[10] composer George Butterworth, and physicist Henry Moseley.

Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe define the Lost Generation as the cohort born from 1883 to 1900, who came of age during World War I and the Roaring Twenties.

[11] When the Lost Generation was growing up, the ideal family arrangement was generally seen as the man of the house being the breadwinner and primary authority figure whilst his wife dedicated herself to caring for the home and children.

[14] Wealthier households also tended to include domestic servants, though their numbers would have varied from a single maid to a large team depending on how well-off the family was.

Sewer systems designed to remove human waste from urban areas had become widespread in industrial cities by the late 19th century, helping to reduce the spread of diseases such as cholera.

[24] Though statistics on child mortality dating back to the beginning of the Lost Generation's lifespan are limited, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 1900 one in ten American infants died before their first birthday.

[26] Laws restricting child labour in factories had begun to appear from around 1840 onwards[27][28][29] and by the end of the 19th century, compulsory education had been introduced throughout much of the Western world for at least a few years of childhood.

[42] This led to metal toy soldiers, which had previously been the preserve of boys from wealthier families, gaining mass appeal during the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

Most of Europe's great powers operated peacetime conscription systems where men were expected to do a brief period of military training in their youth before spending the rest of their lives in the army reserve.

Nations with this system saw a huge portion of their manpower directly invested in the conflict: 55% of male Italians and Bulgarians aged 18 to 50 were called to military service.

[59] Beyond the extent of the deaths, the war had a profound effect on many of its survivors, giving many young men severe mental health problems and crippling physical disabilities.

However, this reshaping of the female role led to fears that the sexes having the same responsibilities would disrupt the fabric of society and that more competition for work would leave men unemployed and erode their pay.

Even with some economic support, raising a family alone was often financially difficult and emotionally draining, and women faced losing their pensions if they remarried or were accused of engaging in frowned-upon behavior.

[67][68][69] Additionally, the large number of men killed in the First World War made it harder for many young women who were still single at the start of conflict to get married; this accelerated a trend towards them gaining greater independence and embarking on careers.

They had a physically distinctive appearance compared to their predecessors only a few years earlier, cutting their hair into bobs, wearing shorter dresses and more makeup, while taking on a new code of behaviour filled with more recklessness, party-going, and overt sexuality.

[71][72][73] The aftermath of the First World War saw substantive changes in the political situation, including a trend towards republicanism, the founding of many new relatively small nation-states which had previously been part of larger empires, and greater suffrage for groups such as the working class and women.

The German and Italian populations' resentment against what they generally saw as a peace settlement that took too much away from the former or did not give enough to the latter fed into the fascist movements, which would eventually turn those countries into totalitarian dictatorships.

[74] The late 1910s saw the Spanish flu pandemic, which was unusual in the sense that it killed many younger adults of the same Lost Generation age group that had mainly died in the war.

[77] Later, especially in major cities, much of the 1920s is considered to have been a more prosperous period when the Lost Generation, in particular, escaped the suffering and turmoil they had lived through by rebelling against the social and cultural norms of their elders.

[78][79][80][81][82][83][84] This more optimistic period was short-lived, however, as 1929 saw the beginning of the Great Depression, which would continue throughout the 1930s and become the longest and most severe financial downturn ever experienced in Western industrialized history.

The depression was also a major catalyst for the rise of Nazism in Germany and the beginnings of its quest to establish dominance over the European continent, which would eventually lead to World War II in Europe.

Additionally, the 1930s saw the less badly damaged Imperial Japan engage in its own empire-building, contributing to conflict in the Far East, where some scholars have argued the Second World War began as early as 1931.

[87][88][89][90] When World War II broke out in 1939, the Lost Generation faced a major global conflict for the second time in their lifetime, and now often had to watch their sons go to the battlefield.

[92][93] The place of the older generation who had been young adults during World War I in the new conflict was a theme in popular media of the time period, with examples including Waterloo Bridge and Old Bill and Son.

Notable figures of the Lost Generation include F. Scott Fitzgerald,[118] Thomas Wolfe, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, T. S. Eliot,[119] Ezra Pound, Jean Rhys,[120] Henry Strater,[121] and Sylvia Beach.