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[16] Levittown Public Library. n.d. “Levittown History.” .org. Levittown Public Library. https://www.levittownpl.org/research-history.
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Reasoning
Levittown is often credited as America’s first suburbs, a picturesque town symbolizing the American Dream at the time. Before World War II, housing and buying a house was very expensive and mainly only rich, upper-middle class white families could afford to own nice a home all to themselves. This led to many middle, working, and lower class families to be stuck in crowded houses or apartments in urban centers like New York City. After World War II, however, the economy began to thrive and Americans sequentially took advantage of the new economic freedoms, like being able to afford a home of their own. The reason why I choose to present Levittown the way I did was to show how William Levitt capitalized on an untouched market, the US housing disaster, and how he was a beneficiary to the timely arrival of the GI Bill, which helped veterans (specifically white ones) get mortgages – making it easier for them to pay for houses. The Federal Highway Act was another piece of legislation put in place around the time of Levitt, allowing thousands of Americans to more easily commute from their suburban neighborhoods into and out of the urban centers where they were employed. All of these dynamics helped change the face of American suburbs and also how Americans perceived the their livelihood, their community, family life, family ideals, gender roles, gender norms, racism, classism, individualism and the American Dream. Amongst all this radical change, however, Levittown acted as a stabling force for many white Americans looking for the social bubble suburbs ultimately provided. In the wake of the Second World War, the American Dream became the ability to buy and own a house, made possible by the new and innovative federal legislation. Levitt understood how to capitalize on the circumstances at hand and seized the opportunity to produce affordable housing, showing his innovate thinking in a time where so many would end up following his model.
I really wanted to display the layouts of the houses and how they were constructed because of the apparent gender roles we can synthesize from them. Leaving the attic or second floor unfinished, having no garage, or basement gives men the opportunity to display their manhood in subtle ways they may have even been unaware to. Men are often perceived as the logical candidate to be able to handle manual work or renovation projects, yet this is a tool that could really be used for men to show off their masculinity. On the other hand, these masculine gender roles also carve out a woman’s role was also perceived, as the men take the part of doing all the “dirty” work of home renovation and women get the “clean” work in this renovation process. For example, women are expected to be the ones to provide guidance with interior decor, not men. Levitt made and planned the Levittown houses with these gender constructs in mind, accepting that the interior of houses would likely be renovation to one’s own liking, not the outside. Levitt wanted the outside of his suburban neighborhoods to all be the same. Levitt did not want any individualization to distinguish homes from one another, which became a personal brand for Levitt to produce these massive neighborhoods, filled with cookie-cutter homes. Residents who would renovate their homes provided distinction throughout the community as a symbol of class or monetary wealth. This too also makes competitions for which person has the best house, creating divides within certain classes. The construction of Levittown also brought up a various amount of other problems, such as racism. Levitt built Levittown as a new community, meant to exclude African Americans or any other force that would put his artificial utopia at risk. Personally, I felt it was important to highlight the overt racism Levitt certainly carried and his building of Levittown, and the obvious marginalization of African Americans, is proof of it. By highlighting that I wanted to enlighten those who were not aware about this reality of early-American suburbs so as to portray a more complete reflection on the realities of the time. Levittown was a community of shelter and oppressive tendencies, and when they did not approve of someone or something, they were place in a constrained, social box, removed from their suburban dream.