Middle-Class Family Life and Suburbia in the 1950s

In the wake of World Warn, middle-class life in the 195Os was relatively peaceful, though it was dominated by cultural expectations. Middle-class Americans were marrying younger and in greater numbers than previously, and many of these young married couples were moving out of the cities, building houses in the rapidly-expanding suburbs, and filling their new houses with babies. In most cases, the husband went into the city to work and the wife stayed home and took care of the house and the children.

Levittowns, developer William J. Levitt's huge suburbs on Long Island and in Pennsylvania, offered uniform houses on tiny lots and became enormously popular. Other developers imitated Levitt's mass-production methods in hopes of cashing in on the appeal of such suburbs. This appeal came from the promise of a quiet, safe life outside of the noisy cities, a...