The unsteady flow of an incompressible generalized Oldroyd-B fluid induced by an infinite plate subject to a time-dependent shear-stress is studied by means of the Fourier cosine and Laplace transforms. The solutions that have been obtained, written under integral and series form in terms of the generalized Ga,b,c(·,t) functions, are presented as a sum of the Newtonian solutions and the corresponding non-Newtonian contributions. They satisfy all imposed initial and boundary conditions, and for λ and λr → 0 reduce to the Newtonian solutions. Furthermore, the similar solutions for generalized Maxwell fluids as well as those for ordinary fluids are also obtained as limiting cases of general solutions. Finally, to reveal some relevant physical aspects of the obtained results, the diagrams of the velocity field v(y, t) have been depicted against y for different values of t and of the material and fractional parameters.
