Documenting United States History

474 ChaPTer 21 | DisContinuities | period eight 1945 –198 0

PraCTICIng historical Thinking

Identify: Describe the patterns visible in the photo.

Analyze: What do these patterns reveal about perceptions of suburban life in the

1950s?

Evaluate: In what ways did the government’s support of housing help redefine the

role that government played in the social welfare of its citizens?

Document 21.1 Levittown

1948

Levittown, New York, was the first mass-produced suburban community. It began after

the Second World War with two thousand homes in 1947 and, aided by Federal Housing

Administration loans, grew to over four thousand homes by the early 1950s.

Conflicting Postwar Visions

toPic i

474 ChaPTer 21 | DisContinuities | period eight 1945 –198 0 ToPIC^ I^ |^ Conflicting postwar Visions^475

Document 21.2 WiLLiaM FauLkner, nobel Prize acceptance

Speech

1950

William Faulkner (1897–1962) used his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Litera-

ture to comment on modern anxieties caused by the threat of nuclear war.

a

ssociated

press.

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