Baby baby boomers
When the boomers were actually in diapers.
Alex Q. Arbuckle
1945-1955
A staff nurse greets some new arrivals at the Queen Charlotte Hospital in London.
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After the end of World War II, birth rates in the United States and other Western countries shot up in a phenomenon that came to be called the baby boom. The boom was driven by an economy in upswing and millions of returning veterans buying homes and starting families with the help of the G.I. Bill. In the seven years after 1948, more babies were born in the U.S. than in the previous 30 years. Today, members of the baby boomer generation are just beginning to leave the labor force and enter retirement.
Infants and toddlers in an orphanage in post-war Japan.
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Nurses hold babies in a maternity ward at Guy's Hospital, London.
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An overcrowded dining hall at Walsgrave Colliery School near Coventry, England filled by children of the post war baby boom.
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A crowd of schoolchildren in the playground of Walsgrave Colliery School near Coventry, England.
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27-year-old Briton Ivy Bourne, mother of triplets and twins. Her mother had a total of 22 children, including one set of triplets and four sets of twins.
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The Finslater triplets at home.
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Nurses with newborns at a hospital in Paris.
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The first babies of the new year in a maternity ward in Paris.
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New mothers change their babies' diapers in New York City.
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A nurse cares for one of many infants at St. Ann's Infant Asylum in Washington, D.C.
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Prisoner mothers bathe their babies in a hospital ward at Holloway Prison in London.
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Participants in a baby show in England.
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