Our Family Story is the story of all the many family lines making up each of our family trees. Somehow, miraculously, these generations of families all came separately through time and place and ended up together as Our Family heritage. As mentioned in the Introduction, the authors William Strauss and Neil Howe have proposed a generational framework for the history of, what became, the United States in their book “Generations.” In this, our narrative, I propose visiting our history as it is distributed throughout the Author’s Cycles of American History. I am going to label their cycles “Chapters”, as outlined below.
Our generations are labeled descending from mine and my spouse’s generation (Generation R) down through the earlier years. Follow the links to reminisce over our family’s generational journey through each of the five Cycles of American History and you can return here to see how the generations of our family trees (in red) align with the theoretical social generations of the author’s Cycles.
Chapter 1: Colonial Times
- Post-Crisis High: Merrie England (1594-1621)
- Awakening: Puritan Awakening (1621-1649)
- Unraveling: Reaction/Restoration (1649-1675)
- Crisis: Glorious Revolution (1675-1704)
Chapter 2: The American Revolution
- Post-Crisis High: Augustan Age of Empire (1704-1727)
- Awakening: Great Awakening (1727-1746)
- Unraveling: French & Indian Wars (1746-1173) – Generation L
- Crisis: American Revolution (1773-1794) – Generation M
Chapter 3: The Civil War
- Post-Crisis High: Era of Good Feelings (1794-1822)
- Awakening: Transcendental Awakening (1822-1844) – Generation N
- Unraveling: Mexican War/Sectionalism (1844-1860)
- Crisis: Civil War (1860-1865)
Chapter 4: The Great World Wars
- Post-Crisis High: Reconstruction & Gilded Age (1865-1886) – Generation P
- Awakening: Third Great Awakening (1886-1908) – Generation Q
- Unraveling: World War I & Prohibition (1908-1929)
- Crisis: Great Depression & World War II (1929-1946) – Generation R (our family)
Chapter 5: Modern Times
- Post-Crisis High: American High (1946-1964)
- Awakening: Consciousness Revolution (1964-1984) – Generation S (children)
- Unraveling: social media & Financial meltdown (1984-2008) – Generation T (grand children)
- Crisis: Culture wars, Climate Change & Pandemic (2008 – now)