Breaking Down Barriers

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Breaking Down Barriers In the summer of 1957, William and Daisy Myers and their three children moved from their house near Philadelphia to the post-World War II development of Levittown, some twenty miles northeast of the city. Like millions of American families in the 1950s, they were seeking the highly touted amenities of suburban living (see “Picture Window Par­adise: Welcome to Levittown!” by Curtis...
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Picture Window Paradise – Welcome to Levittown

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Picture Window Paradise – Welcome to Levittown “To the outsider, Levittown, Pennsylvania, seems like a vast mirage, a city of 4,000 spanking new ranch homes where a short year ago were acres of corn and wheat … ” Ladies Home Journal, March 1953   On Monday, June 23, 1952, John and Philomena Dougherty packed up their belongings, and with their two daughters in tow, drove from a government housing project in northeast...
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Executive Director’s Message

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Message The Most Perfectly Planned Community in America. So proclaimed a 1951 promotional brochure for Levittown in Bucks County, designed and built by developer William J. Levitt. With.in a few months, Levitt’s company had sold three thousand Levit­towner models for $9,900 each and began producing homes at a rate of forty a day using innovative assembly line techniques. By 1958, the development...
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