Conformity and Challenges in the Eisenhower and Kennedy Years 367Levittown was homogenous and conformist, but it was a bulwark for con-
servative values. Surely, no Communists would be allowed to live in
Levittown–nor would any Blacks, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, or
openly gay people. By 1955, others began to copy the Levitt model and there
were 1.65 million housing starts that year, which kept the construction and
other industries associated with homebuilding in great financial shape.
Levittown had its critics, though, none more biting than Malvina Reynolds, a
folk singer who wrote a song called “Little Boxes.” “Little boxes on the hill-
side/Little boxes made of ticky-tacky/Little boxes, little boxes, Little boxes, all
the same/There’s a green one and a pink one/and a blue one and a yellow
one/and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky/And they all look just the same,”
she sang. The people in these “little boxes” joined the country club and drank
dry martinis with their identical neighbors for entertainment. Reynolds was
spoofing the conformity of the 1950s, but it was a very real condition.
Sloan Wilson wrote a best-selling book, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,
to talk about the search for meaning in a conformist society. To get ahead
in the corporate world, one had to fit in, to assume the mannerisms, ideas
FIGuRE 7-9 Levittown houses, 1958