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The Greatest Generation Born 1901–1927

How old is the Greatest Generation?

The Greatest Generation was born from 1901 to 1927, which means its members are currently aged between 98 and 125.

Ages current as of August 8, 2026 · The commonly used range: old enough to remember the Depression, young enough to fight in WWII.

The Greatest Generation was born into the age of the horse and buggy and lived to see the internet. They grew up in the Great Depression, fought and won World War II — some 16 million Americans served — then came home, cashed the GI Bill into degrees and suburbs, and built the postwar world every later generation grew up inside.

Quick facts

Birth years
1901–1927
Ages in 2026
98 to 125 years old
Generation before
The Lost Generation (1883–1900)
Generation after
The Silent Generation (1928–1945)
Where the name comes from
US Army General James Van Fleet used the phrase in 1953, but it was NBC anchor Tom Brokaw's 1998 bestseller The Greatest Generation that fixed the name: profiling the Americans who endured the Depression and won World War II, he wrote, 'It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced.'
Also known as
the G.I. Generation · the WWII generation

Famous members of the Greatest Generation

Every one of them born between 1901 and 1927.

  • Louis Armstrong

    b. 1901

    Music

    Jazz's founding genius, from New Orleans to the world

  • Walt Disney

    b. 1901

    Business

    Built the mouse, the studio, and the kingdom

  • Grace Hopper

    b. 1906

    Tech

    Navy admiral who pioneered computer programming and COBOL

  • Rosa Parks

    b. 1913

    Activism

    Her refusal to move sparked the Montgomery bus boycott

  • Frank Sinatra

    b. 1915

    Music

    The Voice of the American century

  • John F. Kennedy

    b. 1917

    Politics

    PT-boat veteran turned 35th president

  • Ella Fitzgerald

    b. 1917

    Music

    The First Lady of Song

  • Jackie Robinson

    b. 1919

    Sport

    Broke baseball's color line in 1947

  • Marilyn Monroe

    b. 1926

    Film & TV

    Hollywood's most enduring icon, born at the generation's tail

The culture that raised them

Movies

  • The Jazz Singer1927The first talkie — movies learned to speak as the youngest of them were born
  • Gone with the Wind1939The Depression era's biggest escape, still the top-grossing film adjusted for inflation
  • It's a Wonderful Life1946Capra's homecoming fable for a generation just back from war

TV

  • FDR's fireside chats1933The president in the living room — radio made national intimacy possible
  • The War of the Worlds broadcast1938Orson Welles' Halloween drama showed how completely radio held the country

Music

  • Swing and Benny Goodman1935Big-band swing was their rock and roll; the Palomar Ballroom its big bang
  • 'In the Mood' — Glenn Miller1939The wartime dance floor, distilled to three minutes
  • 'White Christmas' — Bing Crosby1942Recorded mid-war; still the best-selling single of all time

Books

  • The Great Gatsby1925The Jazz Age glittering just before the lights went out
  • The Grapes of Wrath1939Their Depression, in hardcover
  • Action Comics #1 (Superman)1938The superhero was invented for — and by — this generation

You probably didn't know

The non-obvious markers — the stuff only the Greatest Generation remembers.

  • They planted 20 million Victory Gardens

    By 1944, home and community gardens were producing around 40% of America's fresh vegetables — a war effort measured in tomatoes.

  • Three million young men joined the CCC

    The Civilian Conservation Corps (1933–1942) paid Depression-era youths $30 a month — $25 of it sent home — to plant forests and build the state parks still in use.

  • 'Kilroy was here' went everywhere they did

    The long-nosed doodle peeking over a wall was the GI's universal calling card, scrawled from Normandy to Okinawa.

  • The GI Bill remade the country

    The 1944 Servicemen's Readjustment Act sent nearly 8 million veterans to school or training and underwrote the mortgages that built the suburbs their Boomer kids grew up in.

  • A movie ticket cost about a quarter

    Depression-era admission commonly ran 25 cents or less for a double feature with a newsreel — the cheapest escape in America.

The events that shaped the Greatest Generation

  1. Influenza pandemic

    The flu killed about 675,000 Americans while the oldest of the generation were in grade school.

  2. The Crash and the Depression

    The formative catastrophe: unemployment near 25% shaped a lifetime of frugality.

  3. The New Deal

    FDR's programs put the generation's young men to work and rewired Americans' relationship with government.

  4. Pearl Harbor

    December 7, 1941: the attack that sent 16 million Americans — the heart of this generation — into uniform.

  5. D-Day

    June 6, 1944: the largest amphibious invasion in history, carried out by the generation's 18-to-40-year-olds.

  6. Victory — and the atomic age

    The war ended in 1945; the bomb that ended it opened the era their children would duck-and-cover through.

  7. The GI Bill

    Education, loans, and mortgages for veterans — the quiet law behind the postwar middle class.

What things cost when the Greatest Generation turned 25

The median member was born in 1914 and turned 25 in 1939 — the tail of the Depression, with the war two years away. Systematic national price statistics were thinner then; the verified figures below come from the 1940 Census, BLS retail food price records, and EIA gasoline price history.

Median home price

▲482% in real terms since 1939

1940 (median home value, decennial census)
$2,938
In today's dollars
$70,546
Q2 2026
$410,700

1940 figure is the median value of owner-occupied homes from the decennial census — the earliest national benchmark.

A dozen eggs

▼72% in real terms since 1939

1939
$0.32
In today's dollars
$7.68
June 2026
$2.14

BLS-derived retail averages compiled by secondary sources.

Median household income

▲265% in real terms since 1939

1939 (median male wage income, 1940 census)
$956
In today's dollars
$22,955
2024
$83,730

Median wage or salary income of men in 1939, from the 1940 census — the first US census to ask about income. The median for women was $592.

A gallon of gas

▼8% in real terms since 1939

1939
$0.19
In today's dollars
$4.56
June 2026
$4.20

EIA historical average including taxes, matching the tax treatment of the modern BLS series. The API 50-city pump price excluding taxes averaged 13.3 cents (Minerals Yearbook 1940).

Inflation adjustment uses BLS CPI-U annual averages (latest published month: 2026-06). Sources for every figure are listed in the sources section below.

Frequently asked questions

What years are the Greatest Generation?

The Greatest Generation was born roughly 1901 to 1927 — old enough to remember the Depression, young enough to fight in World War II. Strauss & Howe, who call them the G.I. Generation, use 1901–1924.

How old is the Greatest Generation in 2026?

Surviving members are between 98 and 125 years old in 2026 — all centenarians or nearly so.

Why are they called the Greatest Generation?

Tom Brokaw's 1998 book of that name made the label universal — 'the greatest generation any society has ever produced' — honoring the cohort that endured the Depression and won WWII. Army General James Van Fleet had used the phrase as early as 1953.

Did the whole generation fight in World War II?

About 16 million Americans served in WWII, the overwhelming majority from this generation — and those on the home front worked the factories and farms that supplied the war.

What generation came before and after?

Before them: the Lost Generation, born roughly 1883–1900, who fought WWI. After them: the Silent Generation, born 1928–1945, who were children during WWII.

Is anyone from the Greatest Generation still alive?

Yes, though few: the youngest members turn 99 in 2026. WWII veterans in particular are now a fast-dwindling group of centenarians.

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Sources

Every fact on this page is verified against the sources below; each entry in the underlying data file carries per-fact source references.

  1. Greatest Generation — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. Greatest Generation — Wikipedia
  3. The Greatest Generation (book) — Wikipedia
  4. Strauss-Howe Generational Theory — CDAMM
  5. Where Millennials end and Generation Z begins — Pew Research Center
  6. WWII Veteran Statistics — The National WWII Museum
  7. Louis Armstrong — Wikipedia
  8. Louis Armstrong — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  9. Walt Disney — Wikipedia
  10. Walt Disney — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  11. Grace Hopper — Wikipedia
  12. Grace Hopper — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  13. Rosa Parks — Wikipedia
  14. Rosa Parks — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  15. Frank Sinatra — Wikipedia
  16. Frank Sinatra — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  17. John F. Kennedy — Wikipedia
  18. John F. Kennedy — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  19. Ella Fitzgerald — Wikipedia
  20. Ella Fitzgerald — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  21. Jackie Robinson — Wikipedia
  22. Jackie Robinson — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  23. Marilyn Monroe — Wikipedia
  24. Marilyn Monroe — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  25. The Jazz Singer — Wikipedia
  26. The Jazz Singer — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  27. Gone with the Wind (film) — Wikipedia
  28. Gone with the Wind — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  29. It's a Wonderful Life — Wikipedia
  30. Frank Capra — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  31. Fireside chats — Wikipedia
  32. Franklin D. Roosevelt — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  33. The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama) — Wikipedia
  34. Orson Welles — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  35. Benny Goodman — Wikipedia
  36. Benny Goodman — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  37. In the Mood — Wikipedia
  38. Glenn Miller — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  39. White Christmas (song) — Wikipedia
  40. Best-selling single — Guinness World Records
  41. The Great Gatsby — Wikipedia
  42. The Great Gatsby — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  43. The Grapes of Wrath — Wikipedia
  44. John Steinbeck — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  45. Action Comics 1 — Wikipedia
  46. Superman — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  47. Victory garden — Wikipedia
  48. Victory Gardens — Smithsonian Gardens
  49. Civilian Conservation Corps — Wikipedia
  50. Civilian Conservation Corps — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  51. Kilroy was here — Wikipedia
  52. Kilroy Was Here — Smithsonian Magazine
  53. G.I. Bill — Wikipedia
  54. G.I. Bill — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  55. Double feature — Wikipedia
  56. History of film: The Hollywood studio system — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  57. 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus) — CDC
  58. Influenza pandemic of 1918–19 — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  59. Stock market crash of 1929 — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  60. Great Depression in the United States — Wikipedia
  61. New Deal — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  62. New Deal — Wikipedia
  63. Pearl Harbor attack — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  64. Attack on Pearl Harbor — Wikipedia
  65. Normandy Invasion — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  66. Normandy landings — Wikipedia
  67. World War II — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  68. Victory over Japan Day — Wikipedia
  69. Historical Census of Housing Tables: Home Values — US Census Bureau
  70. How much housing prices have risen since 1940 — CNBC
  71. How Much A Dozen Eggs Cost The Year You Were Born — The Daily Meal
  72. A Look Back at What Things Used to Cost — Farmers' Almanac
  73. Family Wage or Salary Income in 1939 (1940 Census) — US Census Bureau
  74. Average Price: Gasoline, Unleaded Regular (APU000074714) — BLS via FRED, St. Louis Fed
  75. 'It's Your America:' The 1940 Census Today — The National WWII Museum
  76. Inflation Adjusted Gasoline Prices (EIA data) — InflationData.com, from US Energy Information Administration
  77. Minerals Yearbook 1940 — gasoline prices — US Bureau of Mines