Greenbelt, Maryland was a planned community built in the 1930's to provide adequate housing for low and middle income workers (Model City p. 2). I will be focusing on the child's bedroom in the typical Greenbelt home. I will compare and contrast my bedroom with the typical child's bedroom in Greenbelt. I will also look at how these living spaces shaped the lives of the people who lived there.
My bedroom is located in Syracuse, NY. My bedroom was built, in 1980, by people who worked for Ryan Homes (interview with Steve Leyden). It was built so a child could have a room to sleep in and a room to have fun in. My bedroom was made out of four sheet rocked walls, a hard floor, and a wooden closet door (blueprints of the house). A lot of work was put into making everything the right size and making everything fit together. The room was also built so it would look nice. The room symbolizes privacy and a place of their own that children can have. The design of the room is simple. It is shaped like a sort of big box. My room functions to provide a place to sleep. Some unintended functions of my room are that it can be used for parties or as a place that someone can do work in.
My room serves its function excellently. I sleep well every night that I am in my room. I am very comfortable in my room. I use it to do school work, talk on the phone, or watch television. My room is similar to other bedrooms built by Ryan Homes (interview with Rosann Leyden). I have made it unique by putting things in my room that I value. There is a bed, desk, and dresser in my room. There is also a T.V., V.C.R., C.D. player, and other things in made bedroom that make the room feel right for me. My bedroom is also similar, in design, to my friend's bedrooms who were built by other housing designers. The things I have in my bedroom make my bedroom unique from my friend's bedrooms. Most of the homes in my neighborhood were built in the early eighties, so they are all alike. My room, and other bedrooms in my neighborhood, are made of good quality materials and these bedrooms are superior to bedrooms built in earlier years.
Sleeping and doing work are some social behaviors associated with bedrooms. This is true of almost everyone's bedroom. People use their bedrooms in many different ways. Some people do work in their bedroom, while other people have parties in their bedroom. I consider my bedroom an object of beauty. That is when I keep it clean. I am so used to my bedroom. Everything that is in it is there because of me. The artifacts in my bedroom are things that I wanted to be there. I like my posters on the wall, my telephone, my T.V., my VCR, my C.D. player, and especially my bed. My room communicates who I am as a person. I am someone who needs to be entertained constantly. That is obvious because I have a T.V., VCR, and C.D. player in my room. I always want to be watching or listening to something. I also like to talk which is why I have a telephone in my room. These things all gives clues as to what kind of a person I am. Our culture has influenced how I have set up my bedroom. The things I have in my room are objects that our culture values. Our culture values entertainment and information. The design of my room has also been influenced by American culture. My room was built to look like other bedrooms, in America, do. My bedroom reflects our culture because my bedroom is similar to many other children's bedrooms in America.
I feel very strongly about my bedroom. I love living in my bedroom and value everything that I have in my bedroom. Living in my bedroom has impacted my life. Being able to have my own room, instead of having to share it with someone, has made me a more independent person. I have more time alone, but I have also had a place to get work done and a place where I can relax and enjoy myself. My room has made me an independent person, but it has allowed me to communicate with other people by talking on the phone and find out what is going on by watching television. My room has not impeded my life at all. My room has improved my life and made me a better person. It has done this by allowing me to have fun and do work in the same space. I have been able to be responsible and foolish in the same room. My room has shaped my life in a positive way. My room is very important to me and it symbolizes qualities that I value.
.
In contrast to my bedroom, the child's bedroom in a typical Greenbelt home was different. The bedrooms were built by unemployed workers who were working through the Works Progress Administration. Construction began in 1936 and continued throughout the late 1930's. The child's bedroom in Greenbelt was built for the same reason as my bedroom was. It was built to give children a place to sleep and relax. The Greenbelt bedroom was built of four sheet rock walls, a wooden floor, and a closet door, just like my bedroom. The function of the bedroom was to give a child a place to sleep. That is the same function my bedroom was built to serve. In contrast, the Greenbelt bedroom had different unintended functions. The bedroom could also be used to give a child a place to do laundry and other chores so children could help out their parents. Children helping their parents with chores was common in the 1930s. The bedroom's design was very simple and the bedroom was plain looking.
The work done on the bedroom in Greenbelt was good for its time. Greenbelt bedrooms were furnished with a bed, desk, and dresser. Now it is very outdated and would not serve the needs of today's children. The rooms were very small, but the closets were a good size. Children today need much more space than the rooms in Greenbelt offered. Although, children in Greenbelt had room to put things like dolls, ice skates, and even a globe in their rooms. All of the bedrooms in Greenbelt looked the same because the houses were all built the same way. The bedrooms were designed in a Scandanavian style. The bedroom's compared favorably with other bedroom's of that era. The workmanship must have been good because President Roosevelt is quoted as saying "I have seen the blueprints of this project and have been greatly interested, but the actual sight itself exceeds anything I have dreamed of, this is a real achievement" (Model City p. 3). If the president is impressed, the workmanship done must have been superior. The Greenbelt bedrooms served their function and are similar to my bedroom because bedrooms in my neighborhood tend to look the same too. This is something that has not changed over the years. Neighborhood houses still tend to look the same.
People use their bedrooms in many different ways. People in the 1930's and 40's used their bedrooms differently than we do today. People their bedrooms for doing chores and work. Today we relax and have more fun in our rooms. Doing chores was a social behavior associated with bedroom's in Greenbelt. Typical Greenbelt residents loved their bedrooms and considered them objects of beauty. Louise Winkler, who grew up in Greenbelt, was thrilled about having her own bedroom (Model City p. 7). She was excited to have her own room, even though, the rooms were so small. People appreciated having their rooms own then. Now it is something we take for granted. Greenbelt bedroom's communicated a sense of independence. It was the first time many children had their own bedroom. This is similar to my room, but Greenbelt bedroom's had different things than I do in my room. The culture was very different back then. Children's bedroom's reflected American culture in the 1930's and 40's, but it was a different time. Mass media had not become popular yet. Children did not have telephones or televisions in their rooms. Popular toys, like dolls, ice skates, and toy sailors, were also found in bedrooms (http://otal.umd.edu/~vg/images/dolls.jpg). This is different than the T.V., phone, VCR, and C.D. player that I have in my room. The toys in Greenbelt were simple and cheap. They represented what was popular in American culture. Also the walls were bare in Greenbelt bedrooms (http://otal.umd.edu/~vg/images/childbed2.jpg). I have a lot of posters in my room, but this was not the norm in Greenbelt. Greenbelt rooms left a mark on American culture. Greenbelt rooms had in them things that American culture valued. American culture left its mark on Greenbelt and Greenbelt bedrooms left their mark on American culture.
People viewed living in Greenbelt in many different ways. Some were excited to be a part of Greenbelt while others, like African-Americans, were excluded from Greenbelt. Some people in Greenbelt even found pregnancy to be taboo and pregnant women could not wear shorts (Model City p. 6). According to Mary Clare, who lived in Greenbelt, this was a crazy regulation and today it is hard to realize that this regulation was in place (Model City p. 4). Pets were not allowed and hedges had to be a particular height (Model City p. 6). All of this impeded the lives of people in Greenbelt. Giving people with a low income a place to live, building good schools, and living in a close-knit community were benefits of living in Greenbelt. All of these exterior things give clues about what it was like to grow up in Greenbelt.
Syracuse and Greenbelt are very different communities. Greenbelt is a small town where everyone knows each other and there are certain rules about what you can and can not do. People in Greenbelt were so close they even had a spring festival in 1938 (http://otal.umd.edu/~vg/images/springfestival1938.jpg). Syracuse is bigger and people can do whatever they want. The people in Syracuse and Greenbelt have helped to make the different communities what they are today. People in Greenbelt are very close to each other, everyone knows everyone else, and it is a close-knit community. People in Syracuse are more diverse and people tend to care more about what their doing than taking an interest in what their neighbors are doing. People are close to each other, but not like it is in Greenbelt.
The surrounding areas and living spaces also affect how people act in the communities. The Greenbelt community is very small and everything is close by. Children have their own school, there is a store nearby, and their are recreational activities for children to do right in Greenbelt. For instance, there is a playground and a baseball field right in the children's backyards in Greenbelt. Also there houses are smaller and closer together, so that makes people closer to each other. They are closer to each other because they see neighbors more often and family is together more often because is not that much space in their houses so they have to see each other.
In contrast, homes in Syracuse are spread out. There are no backyard playgrounds and children do not attend the same schools. Houses are also bigger and this leads to families seeing each other less because they have more places to go. There are community events, just like in Greenbelt, but they involve a wider range of people and happen less often.
Overall, Syracuse and Greenbelt are probably more different than similar. Greenbelt is just so much smaller in size and that accounts for most of the difference. There is also is a huge time gap. It is much different to be living in Syracuse, in the 1990's, than it was to live in Greenbelt in the 1930's and 40's. The bedrooms were also different but each bedroom served its purpose for the time period it was used in. It is difficult to see many similarities that remain intact over all of these years.
In evaluating my project with other student's projects, I found that disagreed with Sara Headman. She saw the children's bedrooms in Greenbelt as an area where children did not play. She said children played most of their recreational activities outside. I saw the bedroom as an area where children could play because there were dolls, ice skates, and some other toys in the room. I agreed with Brian Meyers about the Greenbelt community. We both saw Greenbelt as a tight knit neighborhood. We both agreed that people there care about each other and help each other. There is a strong sense of community pride in Greenbelt. I also agreed with Bill Greaves . The master bedroom in his house has a television and a VCR. My bedroom has those items in it. This reinforces the fact that many Americans now have televisions or other entertainment items in their rooms. This was not the way it was, in the 1930s, when Greenbelt was being built. American culture values vastly different things now, than it did in the 1930s.
Bibliography