The presentation for Tuesday's class can be found at (http://history.furman.edu/~benson/hst21/show/suburbs.htm)

Ahh the message board is working.

In Picture Windows by Baxandall and Ewen, I found the depiction of suburban life shocking, yet accurate. I grew up in a town that was a small town close to Charlotte when I was young, but recently within the past few years, it is developing into a major suburb. However within my neighborhood I have seen several realizations of the charateristics of suburbs. The community organizations that everyone is so involved in, a home owners association for example. Also the parents really seem to do make friends with who their children's friend's parents. Reading this book showed me the darker side of the suburbs. Levitt was a arrogant man, in the business only for profit. The suburbs were developed because there was a large need for more housing.

This book was extremely relavent to our lives. Most of us come from suburb neighborhoods and it gave me a better view of its orgins and the controversials events that surrounded its development.

Picture Windows was an informative book, but not my favorite one to read. One idea I thought to be very accurate of the suburbs was materialism. Agnes Geraghty was quoted on page 147, "...who didn't want to impress the neighbors?" I think that is a terrible perception on life, but watch it happen in my own neighborhood. Six families live on my court and four own at least one BMW. It's sick to imagine that people think they need to "up" their status to their neighbors, yet it happens everyday. This crazy notion of competition has taken over suburbia and I was glad to see B and E included it in their book.

I agree with Melissa P. that people move into suburbs to escape crime and life in the fast lane, but it follows them. In order to maintain that safe feeling, more and more homes are being equipped with burglar alarms. Wealthy families are also moving to gated communities for peace of mind. If someone can afford it and that's where he or she wants to live, why not live there then? In response to Joe W., I don't think the suburbs have betrayed American tradition. They have started a new tradition that people seemed to like. As always, there are going to those that don't like it either and that's fine too.

Edited by author 02-18-2003 12:53 AM
Talk about practicality! Who was it that said the things learned in college can’t be used in the real world? I found Custer and Revere more amusing as books, but Picture Windows was informative, and again, pretty damn practical. Baxandall and Ewen provide a unique spin on the suburbia America, as I’ve always perceived the phenomena as simply white flight. I never knew the major role played by the government in order to address the national housing dilemma.

The interviews conducted by the Baxandall and Ewen helps their audience to challenge the myth of conformity usually associated with the suburbs. The interviews seem to reveal that the citizens of Long Island (Levittown) were surprisingly (to the authors of course) similar to those who lived in the cities and urban areas.

I enjoyed how the book related to our class discussion of the emergence and impact of technology. Just as we discussed in class, Baxandall and Ewen also acknowledge the profound influence of the radio, advertising, and the new middle-class. I thought the suburbs emerged in the late 60s, ignorance I suppose. While I knew that the US occupied the number one position in the international arena following the end of WWI in 1918, I didn't draw a correlation between the new economic status of the nation and the emergence of suburbs in the 1920s. Perhaps I didn’t read T, S & P closely enough, but I don’t recall the authors drawing a strong parallel between the housing project experiments of the 1920s and FDR’s New Deal initiatives. The authors seem to argue that the housing projects as the blueprints for the policies of the 1930s.

The concept of Utopia ever since Humanities has been one of great intrigue and resentment. Utopia (no place) is simply some myth that society looks forward to because we know that we can never achieve “perfection”, but it’s something to contemplate while we live our complacent lives.

It was no surprise that the government supported segregated housing, but what I did find surprising was that the new class of suburbanites desired racial integration especially in the southern shore of Long Island. I suppose my association of white flight and suburban America can be attributed to people like Levitt who didn’t want to live near Blacks.

For the authors to state that the suburbs have become diverse is, in my opinion only of course ridiculous. Perhaps my bias and general cynicism combined with the fact that I’m not as fortunate (smirks) to live in the suburbs influences my opinion of the suburbs, but I have yet to visit a diverse one. Sure, there is your typical affluent black or Hispanic (the new minority according to a recent census) family in the neighborhood. I live in the country, just outside of Columbia city limits. Our neighbors, I feel confident in saying are just as content with living in the country on their 15 acres plus of land; in opposed to living in a house just as expensive except in a neighborhood that dictates which flowers can be planted outside, how long the garbage bin can remain in the driveway after being emptied by Richland County Sanitation. If you’re lucky, you’ll have Asians, and a European family or two due to the father’s new position at the latest European company (think: BMW or Michelin in the upstate), but does two or three, even four or five families that aren’t twelfth generation Americans equate diversity?

On an aside note: Does anyone know why the network wasn't working last night AND this morning before class. I missed seeing the absurd time stamp on my posting.

Edited by author 02-18-2003 02:13 AM
Cool, here we go. Picture Windows to me was kind of slow but it did a great job with incorporating the interviews to help the story flow. I thought it was really informative about the coming of the suburbs. It definately got me out of my "Leave it to Beaver" mind frame of the suburbs, especially in the beginning of the book. The demand for govt public housing I feel will always be an issue, but there was a comment in the book that stated that reformers shielded away from calling for a federally funded housing program until the 1930s because of the fear of being called a Socialists. That took me by surprise because after our class discussion on the cold war it made me think that people didnt resort to MaCarthyism until after WWII. I also alway thought the federal govt played a role in public housing before the 1930s, I guess I thought wrong once again.
The suburbia segregation chapter seemed a little disturbing to me, especially how Baxandall and Ewen show how it spread to schools,etc., and continued through to the Civil Rights movement. Also, I never realized how many middle class people struggled economically to lived and stay in neighborhoods, and how it was hard for many family to get by. Yet it is also amazing to see how suburbia is a result of a social need: now housing over one third of the nation. The different views of many people toward suburbia (on bottom of page 167) caught my eye because I feel it is the same way today.
On other hand, the book seemed pretty practical to me. I liked how the book talked about the effect TV (and other types of technology) played in gaining almost instant popularity within the neighborhood. It reminded me of when I was younger and a kid in the neighborhood got a Nintendo when it first came out and he was so cool all of a sudden.

Picture Windows like everyone else has already stated migth have been the slowest read between the other books that we have had to read. Nevertheless, for the most part since it is very reveleant to our world today it was for the most part pretty interesting. I found the accounts given by the actual residents the most interesting to see their view on things. Also I could relate to a part in this most indirectly but relate all the same. The neighborhood I live in used to be all white or so I'm told, the church I went to, the same for that. Now I've seen only at least 3 families, there maybe more or less, that stay in my neighborhood, but not one of them goes to my church. I always took it to be the typical "blacks move in, whites move out", I never even thought of the real estate brokers having anything to do with it. That put a different spin on things.

The Picture Windows gave me a new perspective on the suburbs adn how they began. I found it kind of interesting how they started. I don't really have any previous knowledge about the suburbs because I live in a rural area, but it was interesting to gain the knowledge. I find it interesting how they believed that the suburbs were so essential to American life. They changed the way American's lived and how they viewed life. I think that we take the suburbs for granted because we grew up with them, so we don't consider how they began.

I also found the debate on who would provide housing for the masses to be interesting. I thought the battle was one that was fought for really no reason. The private builders basically built for the middle and upper class white society. So why were they battling with the government who was building mainly for the lower class and all races. I believe that the battle could have been avoided because they really were building to suit different people. Also, with this debate came the issue of renting or buying. They stated that some of the groups "wanted to persuade the government and the public that individual home ownership was crucial for preserving the American way of life". It's kind of neat how they buying houses seem patriotic. If you don't buy a house you lack a sense of nationalism. I also feel that this insinuates that mainly white middle class families show nationalism, because most non-white families probably couldn't afford to buy a house.

After living in several different suburbs growing up, I found Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen's Picture Windows to be moderately interesting. While it was not the most exciting read, it was very straightforward and incredibly informative. From the beginnings of Long Island, to McCarthy, to racial integration, the book had an exhaustive amount of information on just about every aspect of housing in the 20th Century.
The sections of the book that I enjoyed the most were the sections on the Gold Coast and racial segregation and integration. I found it interesting, and not too surprising, that the rich sortof set the precedent for suburban life. Also, I had always known that there were many racial issues involving the start of the suburbs. So it was interesting to have those issues clarified and explored in great detail throughout the book.
While the book was slow moving at certain points, it did offer some great information on one of the more important, and oft ignored, issues in modern U.S. history.

Now that I realize yesterday's posting was supposed to be about the Suburbs, and not a diatribe on the Vietnam War, I shall proceed.

I find that the authors used the develpoment of suburbia as a front to allow an in-depth investigation concerning more controversial issues in American history, such as racial inequality, immigration restriction, the KKK, the rise of corporate capitalism, and, eventually, the civil rights and feminist movements. Some chapters had an intense focus innundated with endless lists and strings of quotes. Other were sparse and seemed more like the authors' speculations, with fewer quotes to substantiate their claims.

The conclusion of the book was quite successful, melding the theories of urban planners and housewives into a complete, accurate perspective, but still seemed like an afterthought. Perhaps one can only truly understand the suburbs by living there, seeing the doped-up mothers and liquored-up das, the children poisoned by televison, the doors tightly locked to block the outside world.

The last test's study guide

Heroic/Romantic school
Nationalist/Scientific school
Progressive school
Anti-Progressive/Consensus school
New political Historians
New Intellectual school (ideology of Republicanism)
New Left school
Postmodernism
Iroquois
Algonquians
Jamestown settlement / "Serving Time in Virginia"
Booster Ethic
Colonies: (Maryland, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, South Carolina, New Netherlands/New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia)
John Winthrop/Roger Williams/Anne Hutchinson
British folkways
New England Religion
Perry Miller, Errand into the Wilderness
Sacvan Bercovitch, American Jeremiad
"The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Salem"
Metacom's (King Philip's) War
Bacon's Rebellion
Dominion of New England
The Glorious Revolution in America
Refinement and Europeanization
The Great Awakening (and its critics)
Ideological origins of the American Revolution
The "Great War for Empire"/Seven Years' War/French and Indian War
Proclamation of 1763
Stamp Act and Currency Act
Townshend Acts
Boston Tea Party
Coercive Acts / Intolerable Acts
Lexington and Concord
"Declaring Independence"
Battle of Saratoga
Treaty of Paris, (1783)
Articles of Confederation
Federal Land Policy
Shays's Rebellion
Constitutional Convention
James Wilson
Federalist Papers
State laws and government in the early republic
The War of 1812 (c'mon, you know I had to ask...)
Andrew Jackson
"Jackson's Frontiers, and Turner's"
Arthur Schlesinger, Age of Jackson
Thomas P. Abernethy, From Frontier to Plantation in Tennessee
Second Bank of the United States
Cherokee Removal
Tariffs and Nullification
Henry Clay
Daniel Webster
Election of 1840
Charles G. Finney and the Second Great Awakening
Transcendentalism (Emerson and Thoreau)
Eugene Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll
William Freehling, Road to Disunion
The slave community and family
Compromise of 1850
The Kansas-Nebraska Crisis
Dred Scot Decision
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
Presidential Election of 1860
Mississippi Secession Declaration
Battle of Manassas
Emancipation Proclamation
Battle of Vicksburg
Grant's Pursuit of Lee (1864)
Freedman's Bureau
Reconstruction Black Codes / Civil Rights Act of 1866 / Fourteenth Amendment
Reconstruction Radicals
Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
The Compromise of 1877

Alright, I'm in the corn group, so the events I chose are from the last part of the book:
Korean War (1950-1953), pp. 521-525, 533
Sputnik (1957), pp. 549-550
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), p. 552
Bay of Pigs (1961), pp. 561-562
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), pp. 561-562
JFK assassination (1963), 562-563
Vietnam - Tet Offensive (1968), pp. 570-571
Watergate (1972-1974), pp. 586-588, 595
"Reaganomics" pp. 595-596
Iran-Contra Affair (1986), pp. 600-601
Gulf War (1990), 607-608, 615
Breakup of USSR (1991), 605-606, 615
Ethnic cleansing in Balkans (1999), 625

Could someone tell me the pages for the Arrowhead group? Again, I'm a little slow, or perhaps I just had trouble paying attention (no offense Dr. B.).

Events and topics I chose for Bison Group:
Woodrow Wilson, WWI, the Red Scare, Stock Market Crash
1932 Election, Roosevelt and the New Deal, Pearl Harbor
Coral Sea and Battle at Midway, WWII, Atomic Bomb
Cold War

Guide for your "build your own" study guide

Assume you need to know the five or six most important things about all assigned documents, about all three books, about the movie, and about all assigned chapters in Davidson and Lytle. You should be able to give a sentence or two characterizing the historians we have named in class.

In addition, I am soliciting suggestions from the following groups for the following sections of the text:

Group: Textbook Section
----------------- ------------------------------------
Arrowhead TSP 307-409 (Gilded Age to Progressivism)
Bison TSP 410-527 (WWII to Origins of Cold War)
Corn TSP 528-627 (1950s to the present)

The postings so far have been good. Feel free to offer modifications for the suggestions of others ("instead of discussing the causes of the Mexican War how about we highlight the plains indian wars...") I will make the final call by midday Thursday.

Arrowhead:
I came across quite a few rather important-looking terms, so...I had some trouble coming up with the top 10 or so. But consider this a starting point:
  1. disfranchisement/"Jim Crow" (p. 312)
  2. Indian Wars/Indian policy (317)
  3. Entrepreneurs (330-332 or so)
  4. Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (333)
  5. Pullman Strike (337)
  6. Darwinism/Social Darwinism/Pragmatism (353)
  7. Settlement House Movement (358)
  8. Spanish-American War (383)
  9. Boxer Rebellion (389)
  10. Panama Canal (390)
  11. Federal Reserve Act (406)

These are for CORN.

Suburbs
Brown v. Board of Education
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Sit-Ins
Free Speech Movement
Tet Offensive
Withdrawal, Vietnamization
Watergate
Fall of the Iron Curtain
Midterm elections, 1994