Cohorts, Chronology, and Collective Memories

Abstract

We asked Americans to tell us the national and world events that they believe to have been especially important since the 1930s, using replicated cross-section surveys carried out in 1985, in 2000, and after September 11, 2001. Our primary interests are, first, in how collective memories change as new events occur, such as the end of the Cold War or the 9/11 terrorist attack; and second, in whether the origin of such memories during the critical period of adolescence and early adulthood, as well as their connection with education, remain stable over time and consistent with theory. As part of our investigation we consider four related issues: collective forgetting as well as collective remembering; the distinction between ease of recalling events and judgments of their importance; compound events, which are composed of sub-events that can be remembered separately by respondents; and larger social and technological changes difficult or impossible to date with any precision. Panel data from the second and third surveys, obtained shortly before and after 9/11, aid in determining which earlier collective memories were superseded by memories of the terrorist attack itself.