In 1929, Abraham Levitt founded a real-estate development company called Levitt & Sons who built mostly upscale housing on Long Island NY. Pre-WW2 first son William Levitt (1907–94) became company president, and the house designs were done by second son Alfred.
From 1946 there were two urgent pushes to the housing market: America's post-war prosperity and the baby boom of 1946-51. Mass production strategies William had learned building military housing could work for domestic housing, so they purchased a 7 square mile tract of Long Island’s fields New York. Levittown’s very existence was dependent on an important act of American community development: the 1948 Housing Bill, which freed up billions of dollars in credit and gave many families the chance to get a 5%-down, 30-year mortgages in the first place.
Starting as America’s proto-typical post-war planned community, the Levittown project began mass-producing single-family homes, foreshadowing a wave of migration from cities. For middle-class WW2 ex-servicemen on G.I loans, Levittown was an affordable dream, a chance to escape the city’s crowded blocks.
![]()
Building one house every 16 minutes at its peak, the company used mass manufacturing systems. Non-unionised and unskilled workers moved from house to house, each performing one of the highly specialised steps in the total assembly process, using standardised materials. It was certainly efficient; they completed Levittown’s 17,311 detached family houses by 1951.
![]()
The critics were wrong. Houses in these developments were less alike than the blocks of flats and the old pre-war bungalows which lined the city streets. In any case, though Levitt built cheapish, fully functioning houses and built them well, he left almost everything else to the new home owners. They were encouraged to customise their homes, whether of the standard utilitarian Cape Cod design or another. Excited families focused on their own interior décoration, windows, rooflines, landscaping and paint colours to show their individuality and creativity. What families most wanted was a sunny, grassy back yard for their children, free from city pollution.
Levittown life had its communal aspects and shared regulations eg no homeowner could fence off a private yard from the shared green and the lawns had to be mowed every week. And they had a strong sense of shared responsibility. They would babysit, drive neighbours around, help out with mortgage payments if needed.
British and Australian historians always had trouble understanding the intense American loathing of Levittown. The “general lust for conformity”, and a “blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price” was the equivalent of calling the Levitt project as socialist and dangerous. Based on the horrors the ex-servicemen had seen in WW2, safety and security sounded like ideals, not a socialist threat. To my baby-boomer ears, bedroom communities of housing developments in the industrialised North sounded enticing.
Why did Levittown become known for its “complacent racism"? The Federal Housing Administration, established in the 1930s, had refused to insure mortgages in black neighbourhoods; they incentivised the construction of suburban communities with the promise of financial help, provided that they exclude black buyers. William Levitt cooperated, partially ensuring that Levittown was quickly successful. It was a question of economics, not racism, he said. Now note the following Levittown clause: The tenant agrees not to permit the premises to be occupied by any person other than members of the Caucasian race. But the employment and maintenance of other than Caucasian domestic servants shall be permitted.
As William Levitt personally rejected racism, there could have been only two explanations to Levittown’s racist entry laws. Firstly Levittown was following the powerful social customs of the era, since it would certainly fail to attract residents if he rejected those customs. Secondly the growing power of Sen Joseph McCarthy and his colleagues was controlling peoples’ views, by terror, from late 1940s on.
![]()
In 1957 the Wechsler family members were committed humanist activists who found a perfect black family to buy their Levittown house; Bill and Daisy Myers were a young, educated couple with children and a GI loan. The Myers purchased the 3 bedroom house for $12,150. They moved in secretly, but very soon a mailman knocked on their door and asked to see the owner. “It happened. Niggers have moved into Levittown”, the mailman screamed.
Nearby a house was rented out to serve as Confederate Club House for the racist residents of Levittown, who saw the arrival of non-whites as an end to their idyll. This Levittown Betterment Committee flew the Confederate flag and “protected” an all-white Levittown! It wasn’t long before the Wechslers’ ex-home was defaced by the KKK and crosses were burned on lawns.
The Myers had support from Quakers, the American Jewish Congress and William Penn Centre. White couples babysat the Myers’ children and helped clean up the wreckage. Finally the State Attorney General got involved, issuing a formal complaint against the racists in Confederate House.
Calling Levittown “communist” was not as laughable as I thought. Though the American government tried to address the severe housing shortage by launching public housing programs, they were viciously vilified by right-wingers as a form of socialism. Sen McCarthy himself called housing projects “breeding grounds for communists”. Furthermore critics compared the architectural uniformity of Levittown as reminiscent of the conformity of Communist China.
![]()
To many, suburban Levittown became a symbol of American modernity; to others, Levittown was a symbol of conformity and exclusion. At least the children who grew up in Levittown New York (1947-51) and its descendants (Pennsylvania 1952, New Jersey 1958 and Puerto Rico 1963) were shaped by very secure and innovative environments.
From 1946 there were two urgent pushes to the housing market: America's post-war prosperity and the baby boom of 1946-51. Mass production strategies William had learned building military housing could work for domestic housing, so they purchased a 7 square mile tract of Long Island’s fields New York. Levittown’s very existence was dependent on an important act of American community development: the 1948 Housing Bill, which freed up billions of dollars in credit and gave many families the chance to get a 5%-down, 30-year mortgages in the first place.
Starting as America’s proto-typical post-war planned community, the Levittown project began mass-producing single-family homes, foreshadowing a wave of migration from cities. For middle-class WW2 ex-servicemen on G.I loans, Levittown was an affordable dream, a chance to escape the city’s crowded blocks.
Advertisement for beautiful Levittowner houses
Note the support for ex-servicemen
The Levitts’ American dream had an aesthetic uniformity, each house being based on one core architectural plan. The development eventually contained carefully laid out symmetrical roads, public swimming pools, baseball fields, parks, shopping clusters in the centre, churches and schools. And a Veterans Memorial Park.
By mid 1952, families were moving in at 500 per month. The first homes sold for $7,990 with a 5% down payment (0% for ex-servicemen). Most of Levittown’s male residents happily commuted to good jobs in Manhattan. But critics had grave reservations: Harper’s called the little Levitt house “American suburbia reduced to its logical absurdity”, and a “uniform environment from which escape is impossible”. Did the critics not understand that ex-servicemen needed peace and security for their families, above all else?
By mid 1952, families were moving in at 500 per month. The first homes sold for $7,990 with a 5% down payment (0% for ex-servicemen). Most of Levittown’s male residents happily commuted to good jobs in Manhattan. But critics had grave reservations: Harper’s called the little Levitt house “American suburbia reduced to its logical absurdity”, and a “uniform environment from which escape is impossible”. Did the critics not understand that ex-servicemen needed peace and security for their families, above all else?
Each house was differently shaped or differently oriented on the block
The critics were wrong. Houses in these developments were less alike than the blocks of flats and the old pre-war bungalows which lined the city streets. In any case, though Levitt built cheapish, fully functioning houses and built them well, he left almost everything else to the new home owners. They were encouraged to customise their homes, whether of the standard utilitarian Cape Cod design or another. Excited families focused on their own interior décoration, windows, rooflines, landscaping and paint colours to show their individuality and creativity. What families most wanted was a sunny, grassy back yard for their children, free from city pollution.
Levittown life had its communal aspects and shared regulations eg no homeowner could fence off a private yard from the shared green and the lawns had to be mowed every week. And they had a strong sense of shared responsibility. They would babysit, drive neighbours around, help out with mortgage payments if needed.
British and Australian historians always had trouble understanding the intense American loathing of Levittown. The “general lust for conformity”, and a “blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price” was the equivalent of calling the Levitt project as socialist and dangerous. Based on the horrors the ex-servicemen had seen in WW2, safety and security sounded like ideals, not a socialist threat. To my baby-boomer ears, bedroom communities of housing developments in the industrialised North sounded enticing.
Why did Levittown become known for its “complacent racism"? The Federal Housing Administration, established in the 1930s, had refused to insure mortgages in black neighbourhoods; they incentivised the construction of suburban communities with the promise of financial help, provided that they exclude black buyers. William Levitt cooperated, partially ensuring that Levittown was quickly successful. It was a question of economics, not racism, he said. Now note the following Levittown clause: The tenant agrees not to permit the premises to be occupied by any person other than members of the Caucasian race. But the employment and maintenance of other than Caucasian domestic servants shall be permitted.
As William Levitt personally rejected racism, there could have been only two explanations to Levittown’s racist entry laws. Firstly Levittown was following the powerful social customs of the era, since it would certainly fail to attract residents if he rejected those customs. Secondly the growing power of Sen Joseph McCarthy and his colleagues was controlling peoples’ views, by terror, from late 1940s on.
War memorial
and open park land
As a result Levittown’s population was 100% white. It seemed that Brown v Board of Education (1954) and the nationwide racial integration that followed hardly touched Levittown.
In 1957 the Wechsler family members were committed humanist activists who found a perfect black family to buy their Levittown house; Bill and Daisy Myers were a young, educated couple with children and a GI loan. The Myers purchased the 3 bedroom house for $12,150. They moved in secretly, but very soon a mailman knocked on their door and asked to see the owner. “It happened. Niggers have moved into Levittown”, the mailman screamed.
Nearby a house was rented out to serve as Confederate Club House for the racist residents of Levittown, who saw the arrival of non-whites as an end to their idyll. This Levittown Betterment Committee flew the Confederate flag and “protected” an all-white Levittown! It wasn’t long before the Wechslers’ ex-home was defaced by the KKK and crosses were burned on lawns.
The Myers had support from Quakers, the American Jewish Congress and William Penn Centre. White couples babysat the Myers’ children and helped clean up the wreckage. Finally the State Attorney General got involved, issuing a formal complaint against the racists in Confederate House.
Calling Levittown “communist” was not as laughable as I thought. Though the American government tried to address the severe housing shortage by launching public housing programs, they were viciously vilified by right-wingers as a form of socialism. Sen McCarthy himself called housing projects “breeding grounds for communists”. Furthermore critics compared the architectural uniformity of Levittown as reminiscent of the conformity of Communist China.
Shopping Plaza, the open-air complex at the centre of Levittown New Jersey
Built 1958-60