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Learn about Levittown and housing benefits for veterans.
Overview
In the postwar era, many Americans moved away from cities and into suburbs, helped by GI Bill benefits that
home loans.
Techniques of mass production made it possible to build homes faster and cheaper than ever before. Using an assembly-line system, the construction firm Levitt and Sons built three giant "Levittown" suburbs in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Due to low prices and veterans' benefits, more Americans could afford to own homes than ever before.
Suburbia in the postwar era
The American Dream: 2.5 kids, a dog, and a house with a white-picket fence. It's one of the most iconic and enduring images in American culture, the object of both praise (as evidence of a high standard of living) and ridicule (as evidence of conformity and materialism). The cookie-cutter homes that sprang up outside metropolitan areas after World War II weren't grand palaces, but to the generation that had survived the Great Depression and World War II these little cottages represented almost unimaginable luxury.
During the late 1940s and 1950s, the American landscape changed drastically. Since the late nineteenth century, Americans as well as immigrants had flocked to American cities in search of factory work. In the postwar era, however, that trend was reversed: thanks to low housing costs and GI Bill benefits, even working-class Americans could afford to own homes in the suburbs.
Though it might not seem like it matters much whether people live in the city, in the suburbs, or on the moon, residential patterns actually constitute a major influence on society and politics. People pay taxes based on where they live, and political representatives are apportioned based on the populations of districts. Consequently, the postwar exodus to the suburbs was part of a vast reorganization of power and money that affected American industry, race relations, and gender roles.
Houses on the assembly line
World War II had gobbled up all of America's production for four years. Factories and construction firms made airplanes and barracks, not automobiles or houses. When the war was over and millions of soldiers returned to the United States, got married, and started the baby boom, there was practically no housing available for them. Newlyweds with bawling babies were doubled up in expensive apartments, or living in temporary dwellings like quonset huts or even converted trolley cars.
But the same industrial might that had propelled the Allies to victory in World War II now turned its talents to housing veterans. One of the nation's leading construction firms, Levitt and Sons, embarked on a plan to mass-produce homes on the outskirts of New York City. Purchasing 4000 acres of potato fields in Long Island, Levitt and Sons laid the plans for the largest private housing project in American history, which they named Levittown.
Built using the principles of assembly-line mass production, Levittown went from a potato field to a community of 82,000 people in less than a decade.
Levitt and Sons also took advantage of the government support offered by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Veterans Administration (VA). Before the FHA, would-be homeowners had to put down an average of 58% of a home's purchase price to secure a mortgage, a nearly impossible prospect for working class families. Since the GI Bill insured veterans' mortgages, Levittown could afford to offer them unprecedented credit, in some cases allowing veterans and their families to move in without putting down a cent.
What do you think?
Are the GI Bill benefits that financed suburban housing similar to New Deal programs, or different from them? Why?
Do you think the assembly-line techniques used to build Levittown houses were a positive or negative development overall? Consider the impact on construction workers, families, and prices.
Why do you think so many Americans wanted to move into their own homes after World War II? Was it due to financial reasons, messages in popular culture, or something else?
Article written by Dr. Kimberly Kutz Elliott. This article is licensed under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Notes
Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 232.
Jackson, 234.
Jackson, 235.
See "Levittown," Digital History, 2014.
Jackson 206.
Jackson 204, 236.
Attributions
Portions of this article were adapted from "The American Dream" article, OpenStax College, US History. OpenStax CNX. May 15, 2015.
Log in 北島 9 years agoPosted 9 years ago. Direct link to 北島's post “Why isn't this like today...” Why isn't this like today? It seems that we have soldiers, but married, have a house and kids. It also seems that the American dream has gone after WWII • (4 votes) Lachesis 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to Lachesis's post “To take your first questi...” To take your first question, "why is this not like today?" Quite simply, although we have soldiers returning from foreign conflicts now, the scale of demobilization (i.e. the number of soldiers coming home and leaving the military) is not comparable to the years after WWII. Add to this the fact that both the domestic and global economies are not centered around mass war as they were in the 1940s, and you are left with a fundamentally different situation. (19 votes) David Alexander a year agoPosted a year ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “It's an average between a...” It's an average between all the families. Nobody has half a child. Some have none, others have 5. The average is 2.5. (5 votes) gn23480 4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to gn23480's post “why did making everything...” why did making everything alike reduce costs? Why was the American dream 2.5 kids? • (5 votes) Madison 3 years agoPosted 3 years ago. Direct link to Madison's post “The reason why there are ...” The reason why there are 2.5 kids in an American Dream family is most likely because that number is the average of all children in American families. (2 votes) Andrew 4 months agoPosted 4 months ago. Direct link to Andrew's post “I wonder what the world w...” I wonder what the world will be like in 2034 Feb 20 • (5 votes) AJ Jones❤️ 5 years agoPosted 5 years ago. Direct link to AJ Jones❤️'s post “"Built using the principl...” "Built using the principles of assembly-line mass production, Levittown went from a potato field to a community of 82,000 people in less than a decade. Construction proceeded according to 27 distinct steps, from pouring a concrete slab foundation to spray painting the drywall." To me it sounds like the houses obviously weren't that great of quality. So did the owners of these houses start having problems with their homes later on? • (4 votes) FN bob 4 years agoPosted 4 years ago. Direct link to FN bob's post “"The cookie-cutter homes ...” "The cookie-cutter homes that sprang up outside metropolitan areas after World War II weren't grand palaces, but to the generation that had survived the Great Depression and World War II these little cottages represented almost unimaginable luxury." (1 vote) calum25 8 years agoPosted 8 years ago. Direct link to calum25's post “Why was it called the Ame...” Why was it called the American Dream • (3 votes) Joe bears 7 years agoPosted 7 years ago. Direct link to Joe bears's post “This was how America proj...” This was how America projected itself to other nations, and this is what people coming to the U.S. hoped for. (3 votes) castillo, reyly a year agoPosted a year ago. Direct link to castillo, reyly's post “strategies utilized to cr...” strategies utilized to create Levittown houses were a determined or negative advancement generally speaking? • (2 votes) David Alexander a year agoPosted a year ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “Housing was needed. Veter...” Housing was needed. Veterans were respected. There was money to be made. Entrepreneurs like Levitt did a fine job. (3 votes) jb268536 a year agoPosted a year ago. Direct link to jb268536's post “How did war war two start...” How did war war two start? • (3 votes) frid1430 a year agoPosted a year ago. Direct link to frid1430's post “what year is this article...” what year is this article from? • (3 votes) Shellina J. Casey✌🏼 7 months agoPosted 7 months ago. Direct link to Shellina J. Casey✌🏼's post “Wasn’t Truman president w...” Wasn’t Truman president when the baby boom was happening? The articles are making it sound like FDR was president then. • (2 votes) David Alexander 7 months agoPosted 7 months ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “The Baby boom is listed a...” The Baby boom is listed as 1946 to 1964. There were four different presidents during those years: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. There was an earlier "boomlet" from 1942 to 1945, when Roosevelt was president, but that can't compare to the big one. (3 votes)Want to join the conversation?
With respect to the "American dream," this was a socially constructed idea of success that functioned (for better or worse) within a particular social and temporal context (white, working to middle class Americans in the decade or so following WWII). You could argue that the "American dream" was never a reality, or to the extent that it served certain ends, it disappeared with the changes in context (social, political and economic) that gave it shape.
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