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THE USA IN THE'50S: HOUSES.

Couples had put off having children during the war years — and now they were malting up for that. We were having a "baby boom." The war veterans had gone to college under the G.I. Bill of Rights, and the government paid for their tuition. By the '50s, most of those veterans were out of school, married, and having children. Their college degrees helped them find good jobs, usually better jobs than their fathers had ever had (most women — at least middle-class women —- didn't work).

Those new families needed places to live, and, in America, every family dreamed of a home of its own. But there was a big housing shortage. What to do? Use some American ingenuity.

William Levitt had it. Before the war, an average builder might build two or three or, at most, five houses a year. Bill Levitt was soon finishing 36 houses a day, which added up to 180 in every five-day week! How did he do it? By analyzing the building process, dividing it into 27 steps, and putting teams of people to work on each step. It was Henry Ford's mass-production idea applied to housing. A team did the same task, over and over, moving from house to house. There were framers and roofers, tile men and floor men, painters who did all the white painting and others who painted all the green. If anyone slowed down, it fouled up the whole production process. Bill Levitt made sure that didn't happen. He began producing his own nails and making his own cement. He even bought timberland in Oregon and cut his own lumber. By doing all that, he kept his house prices very low.

He had thought all this out while he was in the navy, where he was assigned to the Seabees. (They were the navy's builders.) Levitt was commissioned to build airfields, practically overnight. Lives depended on his speed. He analyzed, planned, brainstormed with other Seabees, and buitt the airfields. Later, he said the navy gave him a chance to experiment and learn how to get things done.

Levitt knew that a lot of veterans like himself would be looking for homes after the war. So he bought a huge tract of land on Long Island (near New York City). It was mainly potato fields. Those fields soon became a community called Levittown. Most of Levitt's houses had four and a half rooms and were exactly alike. They were sturdy, available, and a great value — like Ford's Model T. When the first advertisement for the first Levittown ran in the New York Times, people began lining up. In one day alone, Levitt sold more rhan 1,400 houses. Bill Levitt's ideas were soon copied by other builders. The communities they built were part of something that was about to boom: suburbia. Suburbs — on the outskirts of the cities — were springing up around rhe country. Some had low-cost houses, but others were for the affluent. As people moved out of cities, new people — often poor people— moved in. Cities began losing some of their most productive taxpayers just when they needed rebuilding.

From “A History of US”

Answer the questions to the text:

1. Who helped many American families to fulfil their dream?

2. Whose idea did William Levitt use in his building process?

3. How many houses a day did Levitt’s company construct?

4. What did Levitt’s houses consisit of? Describe them.

5. Were such houses cheap or expensive?

6. Where were Levitt’s houses constructed?

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