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Epigenetic clocks have been widely used to predict disease risk in multiple tissues or cells. Their success as a measure of biological aging has prompted research on the connection between epigenetic age acceleration, or faster biological aging relative to chronological age, and socioeconomic status across the lifecourse. However, the extent to which these relationships are causal is not well known. In addition, few studies have looked at the impact of environmental exposures at different time points in childhood to identify critical periods in development where environmental insults could have a greater impact on epigenetic age acceleration. In this study we used state-year-level variation from the most severe economic downturn in American history–the Great Depression–combined with micro-data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine whether early-life shocks accelerated aging towards the end of the lifecourse. Results indicate that macroeconomic fluctuations during the Great Depression had adverse, long-term impacts on epigenetic aging signatures for individuals born in the 1930s, and that these effects were concentrated during the in utero period.