The “Luckiest Generation” Got Started in the 1940s
Teenage life was a new invention back then.
During the 1950s teen culture gave rise to rock and roll, the after school soda shop, and the sock hop. The relief and jubilation most people felt after the war ended had fueled a boom in light-hearted fun. After so much death and destruction the concept of having a longer childhood was one way that kids- including teens – were revered.
The young men of fighting age certainly did not have all the freedoms that their female counterparts did, but they came back to a nation which had fully recovered from the Great Depression and was ready to have a good time. The Luckiest Generation, while technically brought up in the 1950s, actually got its start in the 1940s. Before the 1940s the concept of the teen years as a separate and specific period of life was less prevalent.
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