The early marriages and baby boom of Silents’ young adulthoods may be one reason why they are seen as a conformist generation, as silent and undisruptive as their name. Yet Silents also led the civil rights, feminist, and early LGBT rights movements. Which characterization is true? Both. Silents are like the two-faced Roman god Janus, for whom January is named, who looks toward both the past and the future: They lived their young adulthood in a more collectivistic, family-oriented time in American history, yet also helped give birth to the more individualistic, equality-focused country it
...more
