THE LOST GENERATION: a borrowed phrase?



Along with the decade or era, we name generations, such as Generation X.

"The Lost Generation" is featured on the first page of Ernest Hemingway's

THE SUN ALSO RISES.

He may have "borrowed" the idea.

In the New York Herald, 11 September 1921, section 7, pg. 4. an article

is titled "OUR GENERATION ARRAIGNED AS WASTERS BY AUTHOR/Owen Johnson,

Novelist, Sees Americans' Heritage Passing to Foreign Born Unless Parents and

Educators Institute Noteworthy Reforms." It continued: "War's effects are

considered only lightly by Owen Johnson in the accompanying interview about

his new book, 'The Wasted Generation,' and the object he had in writing it.

Rather does his message apply to American civilization as a whole, and his

indictment of our educational methods is particularly specific."

The New York Herald published a Paris edition. If Gertrude Stein and

Ernest Hemingway had somehow missed that, how about the Herald of 9 October

1921, section 7, pg. 2:



IS THIS "THE WASTED GENERATION"? STIRS DENIALS

By TORREY FORD.

FOLLOWING along with the "wasted generation" idea, a nickname applied

fondly by Owen Johnson to the rising young sons who refuse to rise....