Levittown, Pa.
Building the Suburban Dream
 

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Planning, Building and Selling Levittown The Suburban Dream

Ranch House Pioneers

Becoming a Levittowner

Kidsville, USA

Levittown Electronic Hearth

Home & Garden

Main Street


Levittown Kitchen

Exhibit acknowledgements

 

Home and Garden
OUTDOOR LIVING
sold cartoon

Levittowner mowing lawn.Levittowners spent a lot of time and money caring for their lawns. Keeping up appearances helped keep up property values. In the early years, patriarch Abraham Levitt, an avid gardener, personally inspected homeowners' lots and provided gardening tips in a weekly newspaper column.

Levittowner mowing lawn. [Urban Archives, Temple University]

Two cartoons on lawn care in Levittown; Courtesy of Jerry Jonas.

Repro newspaper column,

A cartoon on lawn care in Levittown. [Jerry Jonas] Abraham Levitt published a regular newspaper column on gardening in the Levittown Times.

Easy Living

Jack and Philomena Dougherty relaxing on their back patio in Levittown­s Stonybrook section. Many residents hired local contractors to pour concrete patios or installed a simple one themselves using fieldstone. [Courtesy of Rita Calzarette.]"Suburbia … where porch society gave way to patio society. Where the formal dining room gave way to the barbecue and the TV dinner. Where white gloves gave way to pedal pushers."

Jack and Philomena Dougherty relaxing on their back patio in Levittown­s Stonybrook section. Many residents hired local contractors to pour concrete patios or installed a simple one themselves using fieldstone. [Rita Calzarette]

The home was the center of the Levittown experience. It was here that residents spent most of their leisure hours, relaxing with family and friends and enjoying the suburban lifestyle, with its barbecues, patios, and emphasis on casual, "easy living."

Repro advert. for patio supplies; From the Levittown Times, 1952.

Informal and family centered, barbecues became an icon of suburban life in the 1950s.

An ad for patio supplies. [Levittown Times, 1952] Informal and family centered, barbecues became an icon of suburban life in the 1950s.

 

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