In the 1950’s the number of people living in the suburbs came to actually equal the number of people living in cities. This wave of people was due mainly to the availability of affordable housing; which allowed middle-class Americans to move to an area previously inhabited only by the wealthy. The houses and neighborhoods built in mass numbers on assembly lines came to look identical to each other. As a result of this, a model American life was created. People all around the country began to follow this model, and before they knew it a race to conform had begun. People no longer strove to be different, neither by ethnicity nor religion; they strove to be the same. David Farber, the author of The Age Of Great Dreams, says that while people were intentionally conforming into model Americans, they were forming their own identities as well. Women began to take on new roles as housewives and mothers. They had to adjust to staying home alone all day, and began to take pride in the appearance of their homes and families. The men, on the contrary, had to adjust to lives of commuting. They were away from their homes all day and had to drive on highways or take trains just to go to work. In the great move to the suburbs on the quest to conform to what was known as the good life, people had to undergo many changes; this enabled them to develop new identities and ways of life.During the 1950’s the gap between white-Americans and African-Americans grew vaster than it had ever been before. The increase in the gap is due mainly to the creation of large suburb towns such as Levittown. By 1960 Levittown had 82,000 whites and no blacks. African Americans were told that they should not bother to apply for housing; the houses were sold strictly to whites. This living situation caused a huge gap to grow between the two races. Prior to the 1950’s people of all different cultural backgrounds lived side-by-side in cities...
