e-Document Project 25 The Postwar Suburbs

The Postwar
Suburbs

After the Second World War, the nation’s culture, politics, and society changed in many ways. Perhaps nowhere were these changes more clearly on display than in the burgeoning suburbs. Millions of Americans fled cities to find new homes and new jobs in suburban areas, especially in the Sun Belt states of the West and South. By the end of the 1950s, one-third of the nation’s population lived in suburbs.

Images of suburbia proliferated throughout American culture. Advertisements promised Americans who relocated to these new developments that they could enjoy tree-lined streets, neat (if small) houses, freshly cut lawns, and lives free of worry, poverty, and crime. Yet the actual history of suburbia is far more complex. A number of interests converged in these new communities. Home builders sought to build as many houses as quickly as possible and to ensure that their developments fit the ideal of the suburban dream. This meant both targeted marketing and the exclusion of racial minorities. The federal government provided low-interest loans through the Federal Housing Administration and GI Bill and constructed roads to connect the suburbs to cities. Cars, service stations, and hotels all became a part of the national landscape.

Great numbers of Americans had little access to this suburban dream. Low-income residents could not afford to buy new homes, and developers typically prevented African Americans and other minorities from moving to suburban communities. Women found themselves consigned to lives of domestic labor and child care—an issue feminist Betty Friedan later called “the problem that has no name.” Many men spent nearly as much time in traffic as they did with their families.

The following documents and videos illuminate the tactics that people and businesses used to lure urban dwellers to the suburbs. They also explore positive and negative aspects of the country’s increasing suburbanization. As you examine these sources, consider the differences between the ideal and the reality of suburbanization in America.