Glorius Generation

Last Updated: Mar. 12, 2008

The Glorious Generation (Hero, born 1648–1673) entered a protected childhood of tax-supported schools and new laws discouraging the “kidnapping” of young servants. After proving their valor 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—and viewed the passion and poverty of their parents as embarrassments to be overcome. In midlife, they designed insurance, paper money, and public works—and (in the South) founded a stable slave-owning oligarchy. As worldly elders, they received the colonies’ first war-service pensions and land grants—while taking offense at the spiritual zeal of youth. (COLONIAL: Cotton Mather, John Wise, William Randolph, Robert “King” Carter, Hannah Dustin, Peter Schuyler: FOREIGN: William of Orange, Czar Peter the Great)

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