Strauss-Howe Generational Theory
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The Strauss–Howe generational theory, also known as the Fourth Turning theory or simply the Fourth Turning, describes a theorized recurring generation cycle in American history and global history. It was devised by William Strauss and Neil Howe. According to the theory, historical events are associated with recurring generational personas (archetypes). Each generational persona unleashes a new era (called a turning) lasting around 20-25 years, in which a new social, political, and economic climate (mood) exists. They are part of a larger cyclical "saeculum" (a long human life, which usually spans between 80 and 100 years, although some saecula have lasted longer). The theory states that after every saeculum, a crisis recurs in American history, which is followed by a recovery (high). During this recovery, institutions and communitarian values are strong. Ultimately, succeeding generational archetypes attack and weaken institutions in the name of autonomy and individualism, which ultimately creates a tumultuous political environment that ripens conditions for another crisis.
Defining a Generation
Strauss and Howe define a social generation as the aggregate of all people born over a span of roughly twenty years or about the length of one phase of life: childhood, young adulthood, midlife, and old age. Generations are identified (from first birthyear to last) by looking for cohort groups of this length that share three criteria. First, members of a generation share what the authors call an age location in history: they encounter key historical events and social trends while occupying the same phase of life. In this view, members of a generation are shaped in lasting ways by the eras they encounter as children and young adults and they share certain common beliefs and behaviors. Aware of the experiences and traits that they share with their peers, members of a generation would also share a sense of common perceived membership in that generation.
Generations
Arthurian Generation
The Arthurian Generation was born between 1433 and 1460 and is of the hero archetype. Members of the generation grew up during England's retreat from France, during an era of rising civil unrest.
Humanist Generation
The Humanist Generation was born between 1461 and 1482 and is of the artist/adaptive archetype.
This generation came of age at the height of the Middle Ages, just prior to the Reformation and Renaissance. For the educated classes life was fairly static, with Renaissance Humanist teaching and a clear career path through the church or State bureaucracy becoming increasingly available for the educated middle classes. Humanist influences took hold across Europe, and in many ways prepared the intellectual landscape for the coming reformation. Their youth coincided with the development of the European Printing press allowing a greater dissemination of knowledge.
According to Strauss and Howe, those who constituted this generation had a sheltered childhood during a bloody civil war and were educated abroad, becoming Greek language tutors, international scholars, poets, prelates, and literate merchants and yeomen. The education produced by the Humanist Generation has been described as focused on the qualitative and the subjective, rather than the quantitative and the objective.
Some of the notable persons who influenced this generation include Thomas More, Erasmus, Thomas Linacre, John Colet, Cardinal Wolsey, Michelangelo, Copernicus, Francisco Pizarro and Cesare Borgia. King Edward V was also born into this generation, but as he died at only 15 years old, it is difficult to properly place him in this archetype. However, according to the historian Dominic Mancini Edward was very fascinated with science and philosophy, and was very well learned beyond his years.
Reformation Generation
The Reformation Generation generation was born between 1483 and 1511 and is of the prophet archetype. This generation rebelled as youths, prompting the first colleges in the 1520s.
Reprisal Generation
The Reprisal Generation was born between 1512 and 1540 and is of the nomad/reactive archetype. They spent their childhood amid religious frenzy and a widespread erosion of social authority-and came of age in a cynical, post-Awakening era of cut-throat politics and roller-coaster markets. They crewed the ships during the wars of the Spanish Armada and saw the expansion of British territories and colonisation in the New World overseas.
Elizabethan Generation
The Elizabethan Generation was born between 1541 and 1565 and is of the hero archetype. They benefited as children from an explosive growth in academies intended to transform them into perfect people of civic achievement and teamwork. They came to age during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604). They regulated commerce, explored overseas empires, built English country houses, pursued science, and wrote poetry that celebrated an orderly universe.
Parliamentary Generation
The Parliamentary Generation was born from 1566 and 1587 and are of the artist archetype. Their childhoods took place during an era of foreign threats and war. They built impeccable credentials in law, scholarship, religion, and arts and crafts guilds.
Puritan Generation
The Puritan Generation was born from 1588 and 1617 and is of the prophet archetype. Members of the generation were led through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1651) by King Charles I and others led a large migration to the United States. The generation was very religious.
Cavalier Generation
The Cavalier Generation was born from 1618 to 1647 and were of the nomad archetype. Members of this generation grew up in an era of religious upheaval and family collapse. Their generation was notoriously violent and uneducated, causing men to take great risks, resulting in many young deaths.
Glorious Generation
The Glorious Generation was born from 1648 to 1673 and were of the hero archetype. They had a protected childhood with tax-supported schools and new laws discouraging the kidnapping of young servants. After proving their worth in the Indian Wars and triumphing in the Glorious Revolution, they were rewarded with electoral office at a young age. As young adults, they took pride in the growing political, commercial, and scientific achievements of England. They designed insurance, paper money, and public works.
Enlightenment Generation
The Enlightenment Generation' was born between 1674 and 1700 and were of the artist archetype. They grew up as protected children when families were close, youth risk discouraged, and good educations and well-connected marriages highly prized. As adults they provided America's first large cadre of credentialed professionals, political managers, and plantation administrators.
Awakening Generation
The Awakening Generation was born between 1701 and 1723 and was of the prophet archetype. They were the first colonial generation to consist mostly of the offspring of native-born parents. As adults they attacked their elders' moral complacency in a spiritual firestorm.
Liberty Generation
Strauss and Howe define The Liberty Generation (nomad archetype) as those born between 1724 and 1741. George Washington and Patrick Henry were born during this period as well as 35 out of the 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence, including John Adams.
Republican Generation
The Republican Generation (hero archetype) was born between 1742 and 1766. This generation is known for participating in several global revolutionary movements during the Age of Revolution. This generation witnessed political turmoil in response to growing British imperialism, and the vast social inequalities exacerbated by ruthless competition between European Monarchists.
They came of age during British imperialism and during a time when the viability of mercantilism was being questioned. Relying on Enlightenment philosophy, they unleashed violent episodes of revolution, vilified Monarchy, and promoted Republicanism. In colonial America, they participated in the American Revolutionary War, secured Independence from British rule, and established a libertarian system of governance, based on constitutional republicanism and representative democracy. Notable persons affiliated with this generation include Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Maximilien Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins.
Compromise Generation
The Compromise Generation was born between 1767 and 1791 and were of the artist archetype. They "rocked in the cradle of the Revolution" as they watched brave adults struggle and triumph.
Transcendental Generation
The Transcendental Generation was born between 1792 and 1821 and were of the prophet archetype. They started the Second Great Awakening across the United States.
Gilded Generation
Strauss and Howe define the Gilded Generation (nomad archetype) as those born from 1822 to 1842. They came of age amid rising national tempers, torrential immigration, rampant commercialism, conspicuous consumerism, declining college enrollment and economic disputes. This led to a distrust of zealotry and institutional involvement, shifting focus to a life of materialism. Most American Civil War soldiers were born during this period (average age was 26).
Progressive Generation
The Progressive Generation (hero and artist archetypes) was born from 1843 to 1859 and grew up during the American Civil War.
Missionary Generation
Suffragists marching in New York, 1915. Social Crusades were a defining feature.
The Missionary Generation was born from 1860 to 1882 and is of the prophet/idealist archetype. Members of the Missionary Generation have been described as the "home-and-hearth children of the post-Civil War era". They were an idealist generation and as young adults, their leaders were the first graduates of newly formed black and women's colleges. They rejected the strict Victorian values, questioned gender roles and feared society would become soulless, inhumane, and money-driven. Their defining characteristics were missionary and Social Crusades, "Muckraker" journalism, prohibitionism, workers' rights, trade unionism and women's suffrage. In midlife, they developed Prohibition in the United States, immigration control, and organized vice squads.
Because the Lost Generation were so decimated by World War I, the leadership of the Missionary Generation lasted longer than previous generations and in the 1930s and 1940s, their elite became the "Wise Old Men" who enacted a "New Deal", Social Security, led the global war against fascism, and reaffirmed America's highest ideals during a transformative era in world history. This generation is fully ancestral, with the last known member of the Missionary Generation, the American Sarah Knauss, having died on December 30, 1999 at 119 years of age. Sociologist Naomi Schaefer Riley believes that a new "Missionary Generation" is forming in the children of the 2010s.
Lost Generation
The Lost Generation (nomad archetype) is the generation that came of age during World War I. "Lost" in this context also means "disoriented, wandering, directionless"-a recognition that there was great confusion and aimlessness among the war's survivors in the early post-war years."
G.I. Generation
U.S. Navy veteran Ruth Harden sings as "Anchors Aweigh" is played during the dedication ceremony of the World War II memorial at Legislative Hall in Dover, Delaware, November 9, 2013.
The Greatest Generation (hero archetype), also known as the G.I. Generation and the World War II generation, is the demographic cohort following the Lost Generation and preceding the Silent Generation. Strauss and Howe define the cohort as individuals born between 1901 and 1924. They were shaped by the Great Depression and were the primary participants in World War II.
Silent Generation
The Silent Generation (artist archetype) is the demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the baby boomers. Strauss and Howe define the cohort as individuals born between 1925 and 1942.
Baby Boom Generation
Strauss and Howe define the Baby Boom Generation as those born from 1943 to 1960.
13th Generation
Generation X
Strauss and Howe define the 13th Generation as those born from 1961 to 1981.
Millennial Generation
Millennials
Strauss and Howe define the Millennial Generation as those born from 1982 to 2004.
Homeland Generation
Generation Z
Strauss and Howe define the Homeland Generation as those born from 2005 to present. The exact dates for this generation may be affected by current and future historical events.
Defining a Generation
Strauss and Howe define a social generation as the aggregate of all people born over a span of roughly twenty years or about the length of one phase of life: childhood, young adulthood, midlife, and old age. Generations are identified (from first birthyear to last) by looking for cohort groups of this length that share three criteria. First, members of a generation share what the authors call an age location in history: they encounter key historical events and social trends while occupying the same phase of life. In this view, members of a generation are shaped in lasting ways by the eras they encounter as children and young adults and they share certain common beliefs and behaviors. Aware of the experiences and traits that they share with their peers, members of a generation would also share a sense of common perceived membership in that generation.
Generations
Arthurian Generation
The Arthurian Generation was born between 1433 and 1460 and is of the hero archetype. Members of the generation grew up during England's retreat from France, during an era of rising civil unrest.
Humanist Generation
The Humanist Generation was born between 1461 and 1482 and is of the artist/adaptive archetype.
This generation came of age at the height of the Middle Ages, just prior to the Reformation and Renaissance. For the educated classes life was fairly static, with Renaissance Humanist teaching and a clear career path through the church or State bureaucracy becoming increasingly available for the educated middle classes. Humanist influences took hold across Europe, and in many ways prepared the intellectual landscape for the coming reformation. Their youth coincided with the development of the European Printing press allowing a greater dissemination of knowledge.
According to Strauss and Howe, those who constituted this generation had a sheltered childhood during a bloody civil war and were educated abroad, becoming Greek language tutors, international scholars, poets, prelates, and literate merchants and yeomen. The education produced by the Humanist Generation has been described as focused on the qualitative and the subjective, rather than the quantitative and the objective.
Some of the notable persons who influenced this generation include Thomas More, Erasmus, Thomas Linacre, John Colet, Cardinal Wolsey, Michelangelo, Copernicus, Francisco Pizarro and Cesare Borgia. King Edward V was also born into this generation, but as he died at only 15 years old, it is difficult to properly place him in this archetype. However, according to the historian Dominic Mancini Edward was very fascinated with science and philosophy, and was very well learned beyond his years.
Reformation Generation
The Reformation Generation generation was born between 1483 and 1511 and is of the prophet archetype. This generation rebelled as youths, prompting the first colleges in the 1520s.
Reprisal Generation
The Reprisal Generation was born between 1512 and 1540 and is of the nomad/reactive archetype. They spent their childhood amid religious frenzy and a widespread erosion of social authority-and came of age in a cynical, post-Awakening era of cut-throat politics and roller-coaster markets. They crewed the ships during the wars of the Spanish Armada and saw the expansion of British territories and colonisation in the New World overseas.
Elizabethan Generation
The Elizabethan Generation was born between 1541 and 1565 and is of the hero archetype. They benefited as children from an explosive growth in academies intended to transform them into perfect people of civic achievement and teamwork. They came to age during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604). They regulated commerce, explored overseas empires, built English country houses, pursued science, and wrote poetry that celebrated an orderly universe.
Parliamentary Generation
The Parliamentary Generation was born from 1566 and 1587 and are of the artist archetype. Their childhoods took place during an era of foreign threats and war. They built impeccable credentials in law, scholarship, religion, and arts and crafts guilds.
Puritan Generation
The Puritan Generation was born from 1588 and 1617 and is of the prophet archetype. Members of the generation were led through the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-1651) by King Charles I and others led a large migration to the United States. The generation was very religious.
Cavalier Generation
The Cavalier Generation was born from 1618 to 1647 and were of the nomad archetype. Members of this generation grew up in an era of religious upheaval and family collapse. Their generation was notoriously violent and uneducated, causing men to take great risks, resulting in many young deaths.
Glorious Generation
The Glorious Generation was born from 1648 to 1673 and were of the hero archetype. They had a protected childhood with tax-supported schools and new laws discouraging the kidnapping of young servants. After proving their worth in the Indian Wars and triumphing in the Glorious Revolution, they were rewarded with electoral office at a young age. As young adults, they took pride in the growing political, commercial, and scientific achievements of England. They designed insurance, paper money, and public works.
Enlightenment Generation
The Enlightenment Generation' was born between 1674 and 1700 and were of the artist archetype. They grew up as protected children when families were close, youth risk discouraged, and good educations and well-connected marriages highly prized. As adults they provided America's first large cadre of credentialed professionals, political managers, and plantation administrators.
Awakening Generation
The Awakening Generation was born between 1701 and 1723 and was of the prophet archetype. They were the first colonial generation to consist mostly of the offspring of native-born parents. As adults they attacked their elders' moral complacency in a spiritual firestorm.
Liberty Generation
Strauss and Howe define The Liberty Generation (nomad archetype) as those born between 1724 and 1741. George Washington and Patrick Henry were born during this period as well as 35 out of the 56 signatories of the Declaration of Independence, including John Adams.
Republican Generation
The Republican Generation (hero archetype) was born between 1742 and 1766. This generation is known for participating in several global revolutionary movements during the Age of Revolution. This generation witnessed political turmoil in response to growing British imperialism, and the vast social inequalities exacerbated by ruthless competition between European Monarchists.
They came of age during British imperialism and during a time when the viability of mercantilism was being questioned. Relying on Enlightenment philosophy, they unleashed violent episodes of revolution, vilified Monarchy, and promoted Republicanism. In colonial America, they participated in the American Revolutionary War, secured Independence from British rule, and established a libertarian system of governance, based on constitutional republicanism and representative democracy. Notable persons affiliated with this generation include Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Maximilien Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins.
Compromise Generation
The Compromise Generation was born between 1767 and 1791 and were of the artist archetype. They "rocked in the cradle of the Revolution" as they watched brave adults struggle and triumph.
Transcendental Generation
The Transcendental Generation was born between 1792 and 1821 and were of the prophet archetype. They started the Second Great Awakening across the United States.
Gilded Generation
Strauss and Howe define the Gilded Generation (nomad archetype) as those born from 1822 to 1842. They came of age amid rising national tempers, torrential immigration, rampant commercialism, conspicuous consumerism, declining college enrollment and economic disputes. This led to a distrust of zealotry and institutional involvement, shifting focus to a life of materialism. Most American Civil War soldiers were born during this period (average age was 26).
Progressive Generation
The Progressive Generation (hero and artist archetypes) was born from 1843 to 1859 and grew up during the American Civil War.
Missionary Generation
Suffragists marching in New York, 1915. Social Crusades were a defining feature.
The Missionary Generation was born from 1860 to 1882 and is of the prophet/idealist archetype. Members of the Missionary Generation have been described as the "home-and-hearth children of the post-Civil War era". They were an idealist generation and as young adults, their leaders were the first graduates of newly formed black and women's colleges. They rejected the strict Victorian values, questioned gender roles and feared society would become soulless, inhumane, and money-driven. Their defining characteristics were missionary and Social Crusades, "Muckraker" journalism, prohibitionism, workers' rights, trade unionism and women's suffrage. In midlife, they developed Prohibition in the United States, immigration control, and organized vice squads.
Because the Lost Generation were so decimated by World War I, the leadership of the Missionary Generation lasted longer than previous generations and in the 1930s and 1940s, their elite became the "Wise Old Men" who enacted a "New Deal", Social Security, led the global war against fascism, and reaffirmed America's highest ideals during a transformative era in world history. This generation is fully ancestral, with the last known member of the Missionary Generation, the American Sarah Knauss, having died on December 30, 1999 at 119 years of age. Sociologist Naomi Schaefer Riley believes that a new "Missionary Generation" is forming in the children of the 2010s.
Lost Generation
The Lost Generation (nomad archetype) is the generation that came of age during World War I. "Lost" in this context also means "disoriented, wandering, directionless"-a recognition that there was great confusion and aimlessness among the war's survivors in the early post-war years."
G.I. Generation
U.S. Navy veteran Ruth Harden sings as "Anchors Aweigh" is played during the dedication ceremony of the World War II memorial at Legislative Hall in Dover, Delaware, November 9, 2013.
The Greatest Generation (hero archetype), also known as the G.I. Generation and the World War II generation, is the demographic cohort following the Lost Generation and preceding the Silent Generation. Strauss and Howe define the cohort as individuals born between 1901 and 1924. They were shaped by the Great Depression and were the primary participants in World War II.
Silent Generation
The Silent Generation (artist archetype) is the demographic cohort following the Greatest Generation and preceding the baby boomers. Strauss and Howe define the cohort as individuals born between 1925 and 1942.
Baby Boom Generation
Strauss and Howe define the Baby Boom Generation as those born from 1943 to 1960.
13th Generation
Generation X
Strauss and Howe define the 13th Generation as those born from 1961 to 1981.
Millennial Generation
Millennials
Strauss and Howe define the Millennial Generation as those born from 1982 to 2004.
Homeland Generation
Generation Z
Strauss and Howe define the Homeland Generation as those born from 2005 to present. The exact dates for this generation may be affected by current and future historical events.