Children in Progressive-Era America

Teenage Culture

<h2>Suburbia</h2>
In the economic boom of the post World War II-era, housing was in high demand. Through a provision of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, a mortgage program provided for returning soldiers in 1944. People were eager to buy homes and settle down, away from crowded cities that afforded little space for their children to play. Enterprising developers went to work building spaces that could specifically accommodate families.
Dr. Spock’s bestselling book on parenting, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, implored parents towards a more empathetic style of parenting, through which children’s needs were listened to and understood. Rigid schedules and firm rules for children were slowly discarded, and children occupied a more empowered position in postwar families. The suburban homes that many families lived in reflected this, with designated playrooms and spacious yards.
However, the safe parks and new schools that so attracted families were not enjoyed by all in the postwar period. Facilities were racially segregated throughout the South, and African American children might be educated in dilapidated army barracks, while their white peers learned in a new and spacious school building.

Photograph of girls tap dancing, Manchester, Georgia, 1953

Photograph of two women and a boy sweeping the streets, Clarkesville, Georgia, 1953

Photograph of African American students in a classroom, Habersham County, Georgia, 1953

Childhood in Postwar America

Work Life

Reform

Public Health

Play

Children's Organizations

Levittown: Alter, Joseph, residence. Children's room. Levittown, NY

Levittown, a suburban community on Long Island, New York, began development and was ready for occupancy in 1947, just in time for the postwar demand for housing. The first subdivision to boast thousands of cookie-cutter single-family homes, manicured lawns and and wide streets, it is considered the archetype of the American suburb. Levittown eventually had 17,447 houses containing 82,000 people. For parents in postwar America, Levittown and the suburban life it represented were safe places to raise children away from the dangers of city life and bad influences.
Not everyone was encouraged to move their families to Levittown. A whites-only policy was printed in the original Levittown standard lease, although it was dropped in 1948. However, when the first African American family moved to Levittown, Pennsylvania, in 1957, a second development built by the Levitts in the same model as the first, homeowners protested on the new residents’ lawn.
Levittown embodied the spirit of conformity that critics described at the heart of suburban life. It demonstrated that within this model of policed sameness, there was plenty of room for discrimination.

Children in Progressive-Era America

Levittown, New York

Levittown, New York