In Levittown's Shadow - (Historical Studies of Urban America) by Tim Keogh (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Inverting the conventional history of American suburbanization, Tim Keogh turns the spotlight from wealth and freedom to poverty and inequality. Focusing on the archetypal Long Island communities of the postwar era, Keogh shows that a key driver of suburban development and the segregation it embodied was not housing but employment. Inequality and injustice were baked into suburban development, but housing discrimination was a secondary expression of this, not a primary cause. As a result, equity-minded suburbs that focused on housing policy rather than employment opportunities were doomed to fail. Keogh hopes to motivate more effective approaches to contemporary inequity by changing our understanding of how it took shape historically"--

Book Synopsis

Named one of the best nonfiction books of 2023 by Publishers Weekly!

There is a familiar narrative about American suburbs: after 1945, white residents left cities for leafy, affluent subdivisions and the prosperity they seemed to embody. In Levittown's Shadow tells us there's more to this story, offering an eye-opening account of diverse, poor residents living and working in those same neighborhoods. Tim Keogh shows how public policies produced both suburban plenty and deprivation--and why ignoring suburban poverty doomed efforts to reduce inequality.

Keogh focuses on the suburbs of Long Island, home to Levittown, often considered the archetypal suburb. Here military contracts subsidized well-paid employment welding airplanes or filing paperwork, while weak labor laws impoverished suburbanites who mowed lawns, built houses, scrubbed kitchen floors, and stocked supermarket shelves. Federal mortgage programs helped some families buy orderly single-family homes and enter the middle class but also underwrote landlord efforts to cram poor families into suburban attics, basements, and sheds. Keogh explores how policymakers ignored suburban inequality, addressing housing segregation between cities and suburbs rather than suburbanites' demands for decent jobs, housing, and schools.

By turning our attention to the suburban poor, Keogh reveals poverty wasn't just an urban problem but a suburban one, too. In Levittown's Shadow deepens our understanding of suburbia's history--and points us toward more effective ways to combat poverty today.

Review Quotes

"Levittown is one of the most well-known popular symbols of the postwar American dream--and nightmare. Keogh's must-read contribution to its prodigious historiography mainly expands on the latter. . . . Keogh grounds this history of poverty with a close examination of local property records, civic and government organizations, and life stories that he traces across multiple chapters."-- "American Historical Review"

"As Keogh's pathbreaking book In Levittown's Shadow documents, the prosperity of postwar communities like Levittown depended on growing suburban poverty and exploitation elsewhere." -- "Dissent"

"Impressively researched and passionately argued, In Levittown's Shadow enriches suburban historiography. It also contributes usefully to an ongoing debate about just how far the US could or should move toward European-style social democracy."-- "Choice"

"Tim Keogh's In Levittown's Shadow: Poverty in America's Wealthiest Postwar Suburb drills deep into the social history of Long Island from the 1940s to the '70s. . . . it's powerfully illuminating."-- "Commonweal"

"A brilliant analysis of suburban poverty."-- "Library Journal"

"Keogh provides an accessible and convincing synthesis of statistics, institutional history, and sociological analysis. It's a landmark account."-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

"In Levittown's Shadow shows us how the postwar US suburb was both better and worse than you might think, establishing what we might even characterize as a social-democratic welfare state for some, but one built on the exploitation and immiseration of others. This excellent book thus complicates our histories of the character and development of the US welfare state, undermines the myth of the poverty-free suburb, and deepens our understandings of the long roots of today's widespread suburban poverty." --Stephen Pimpare, University of New Hampshire

"There are more people living below the poverty line in suburbs than in urban centers today. Keogh pulls back the curtain on the longer history of this suburban poverty, explaining how Americans embraced suburbs as exceptionally prosperous spaces while also writing policies that made inequality a core component of suburban growth. In Levittown's Shadow is a compelling, urgent study--one that points a way out of this complex history toward a more equitable, just, and thriving future." --Nancy Kwak, University of California San Diego

About the Author

Tim Keogh is assistant professor of history at Queensborough Community College, part of the City University of New York.