Several events took place in the 1950s that would change forever the look and feel of the United States. Among the most important was passage of the federal Interstate Highway Act of 1956. This landmark bill provided for the construction of forty-one thousand miles of freeways, to be built over a ten-year period at a cost of $26 billion. The act represented one of the largest public-works projects ever undertaken in the United States. As it turned out, interstate highway construction lasted more than twenty-five years and cost more than $100 billion. But the web of wonderful, multilane roads from one major city to another became a necessity, due in part to the huge numbers of cars that were being sold.
Memories of the decade are filled with large, shiny, tail-finned automobiles. That’s because Detroit was building barge-sized cars, and Americans were buying them in record numbers. Miles traveled by automobile in 1950 totaled 458 billion. A decade later, that number had doubled. Americans were moving around almost exclusively in private transportation in cars featuring huge V-8 engines, padded dashboards, wraparound windshields, vast expanses of chrome and sheet metal, and even, in some cases, air conditioning. Almost 58 million cars were manufactured during the 1950s, and the 7.9 million vehicles sold in 1955 would not be exceeded until well into the following decade.
If highways and cars were changing the country, so was the housing market. The Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II combined to stifle home construction. So when GIs returned to the U.S. in the mid-1940s, the demand for decent places to live was incredible. That demand was answered by people like William J. Levitt, the first person to offer inexpensive, assembly-line housing. Levitt’s Levittowns — hundreds of very similar houses crowded into an instant suburb — sprang up on the East Coast and were soon imitated everywhere. Families could have modern appliances, individual bedrooms, garages, and lawns for as little as $6,000. Veterans could use low-interest loans to aid them in their big purchase, and builders and developers stayed busy for the entire decade, particularly in large areas outside cities where homes by the hundreds were being quickly erected.
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William J. Levitt. (1907-1994) |
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Life magazine named William J. Levitt one of its one hundred most important Americans of the twentieth century — and no wonder. GIs returning from World War II were met with thousands of new, reasonably priced, well-made Levitt-built homes. The suburbs as we know them today were conceived by Levitt in the late 1940s and the 1950s. He constructed more than seventeen thousand houses at a safe and sanitary distance from factories and inner cities. Levitt’s first mass-produced homes were built on New York’s Long Island in an area appropriately named Levittown. The planned development, with small but tidy lots, curbs, gutters, and services, became the prototype for many developments all across the land. It also hastened the country’s march from cities to suburbs. An observer compared Levitt, a Long Island native, to Henry Ford. Neither man invented anything or even improved the technology of the product. What each did instead was bring immense popularity to their respective products and industries. They produced economically priced items in a bigger and bolder way than had ever been done before. Levitt became world renowned and immensely wealthy. But he failed in later years when he tried to create a Levittown-like area in Florida. At one point, his finances were in such a mess that he was barred from building homes in New York state. He sold his northern development companies to his son in 1968 and later lost millions in a series of failed business ventures both in and out of the country. In 1990, the New York attorney general accused Levitt of looting the Levitt Foundation, a charity. Levitt agreed to pay $11 million in penalties in 1992, but was able to come up with only $7.7 million. He also was accused of making illegal campaign contributions, though he ended up not paying the $39,000 fine because of age and ill health. Despite his stormy later dealings, William J. Levitt contributed not only to the lifestyle of the 1950s but also helped increase the number of homeowners and strengthened the middle class.
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These occurrences — highway construction and the overpowering urge to own cars and homes — caused huge social changes. Americans needed cars and decent roads to reach suburban dwellings and to commute from those dwellings back into the central city, where most of the jobs remained. With such a major, nationwide expansion under way, jobs were never more important. The quality and quantity of jobs that paid well were amazing. Unions secured enough money for skilled workers to put them into the middle class, and huge corporations were paying their white-collar accountants, salespeople, and managers very well. But in the case of the white-collar employee, money and job security had their price.
Up the Corporate Ladder
Young executives operated under rules that were often unwritten but quite rigid, nevertheless. They were expected to socialize after work as part of their job, to consume liquor without visible effect, to dress almost as well as their supervisors, to entertain when required, to join country clubs and at least make the attempt to play golf, and to have a doting and supportive family awaiting them when they returned to suburbia each evening. Almost all executives at the time were men. Consequently, wives were forced to operate under different, but equally narrow, guidelines. Women looked after the home and children; they were called "helpmates." They were expected to create a supportive atmosphere that would make the rising-executive husband most productive at work. That meant everything from flawlessly washing and pressing dress shirts to mingling with the other wives at company gatherings.
In return for such obedience to the corporation, families enjoyed club memberships, baseball games, and picnics; the income from white-collar jobs purchased washers, dryers, freezers, bicycles, and new cars and allowed middle-class families to set enough money aside for their children’s college education. The official mood was optimism among those who enjoyed conformity. Among single adults, minorities, homosexuals, childless couples, the elderly, and the poor, the unofficial mood bordered on repression. Yet there were pressures on the middle class, too. The percentage of working wives increased from 15 percent in 1940 to 30 percent in 1960, but some women who felt forced to stay at home were frustrated that their talents were being wasted.
