Great-grandparents' era

Your great-grandparents were born at the turn of the century (that is, the turn of the 19^th into the 20^th century.) 

The world was in great flux when they were born—cracks were starting to show in the Gilded Age created by the robber barons of the late 19^th Century Industrial Revolution. Labor unrest and progressive politics were growing louder and louder, and then World War I broke. (They didn’t know then it was only the first one; they called it “The Great War.”)   

It wasn’t just the Great War that stressed them out in the late teens and early 20s. Your great grandparents probably lost friends to the global Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919, and likely feared for their own lives, since it was most lethal for people their age.

Then, as they were getting rolling with their own families and careers, the Great Depression hit, and then World War II. 

For the most part though—for white, English-speaking people in America like your great-grandparents—this was the first American generation for whom hard work and clean living was, in fact, an almost sure path to prosperity and security—even if you started from lowly beginnings. 

They all did all right for themselves.



GGP Hollis McKim
GGM Jean Abercrombie
GGP Donald James
GGM Esta Bream

Back to home page