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Greenbelt, MD is
one of three "green" towns created by FDR's
administration beginning in 1935 to help low-income families to live in
a healthy suburban environment. The city and the people of Greenbelt were
affected by World War II, as was the rest of the country. Both the face of
the city and the people's behavior changed. In particular, the Defense
Devlopment addition to Greenbelt was different than the rest of the city
in fundamental ways. Along with a change in architecture, the people
of Greenbelt were affected in various ways by the home front effort.
Before the United States's entry into the Second World War, known as the
"Defense Period", Congress passed the
Lanham Act
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Figure 1: Children using an underpass to cross a street
without fighting traffic (Stein, 140).
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which, among other things, set aside money to build community facilities for
those employed in the "essential defense industry". Greenbelt grew by
a thousand homes in 1941 because of this
(Stein, 130). The Defense Homes, however, were
different than the original Greenbelt homes. One significant difference is
that the Defense Homes did not have the inner block paths and underpasses
(figure 1) that the original Greenbelt homes did (figure 2).
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Figure 2: Children waiting to cross a street in the
Greenbelt Defense Development (Stein, 141).
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The Defense Homes were row houses lined up around a dead-end street. The main
doorways opened into unfinished open spaces, and the paths on what should have
been the garden side were not built. There was inadequate topsoil to plant
a garden, and trees were scarce. Houses were seperated by barren fields or mud.
Sidewalks have been added in the more dangerous and frequently used areas.
Additionally, no hedges or fences in the original plans separated houses
from the adjacent streets (figure 3). As a result, a girl was killed by a garbage
truck when she ran out of her house and found herself directly under its
rear wheel. Had there been hedges lining the yard between the street been
as large as the older homes' or enclosed with fences or hedges this tragedy
would have been avoided. Along this line, there's plenty to be seen about
architecture in Greenbelt. Here's
a look at the architecture of Greenbelt.
In the original Greenbelt community, small
playgrounds could be found every few blocks, and large playgrounds every
six. These are some of the advantages of a planned community, which is
examined in more detail here.
The Defense Development, on the other hand, has such a scarcity of
play areas that children there usually play in the streets because they
are the only areas near home which are sufficiently large. As a result,
some residents park their cars far from their homes to avoid hitting the
children in the streets (Stein, 142).
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Figure 3: A typical Defense Development house. Note there is nothing between the lawn and the road (left). On the right is a typical house
from the original community(Stein, 141).
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All of these factors put together point to one
conclusion: that the Defense Development was a poor attempt at replicating
the existing Greenbelt. I believe this is consistent with the way that
suburbia in general is heading. There is a tendency for suburbs, and in fact
nearly all residential areas, to degrade. I would say that many suburbs no
longer look like parks. There are a large number that are townhouses with
marginal lawns. In Bourgeois Utopias, the
"technoburbs" were seen as the unfortunate futures of most suburbs. Indeed,
such monstrosities as strip malls are sneaking up on Greenbelt. Beltway Plaza
is walking distance from Old Greenbelt, and it is not a lovely sight. According
to a tour guide at the Greenbelt Museum, the proximity of Beltawy Plaza to
Greenbelt would have been prevented if more funds had been available when
the land was purchaced originally. This degredation which occurred just before
WWII is not the last time the Greenbelt suffered.
Tariq's project
delves more deeply into the woes that Greenbelt suffered between 1950 and 1970.
Society changed significantly
with the advent of the US joining the war. Perhaps
the most important factor in causing change was that
the vast majority of eligible men left to join the
war. Many of the women had to get jobs, which was
a change for many of them. In the traditional
suburban household, as seen in Hanging Together,
the woman stayed home and tended the house and the kids
while the husband worked. Now she had to tackle both
roles (figure 4).
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Figure 4: A WWII-era photo of a woman welding
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Dr. Paoletti's class performed some ethnographic interviews on
several informants who lived in Greenbelt during WWII. Much insight
can be gained from these people's stories.
Once WWII was off and running, one major change
occurred that changed the way in which Greenbelt, and nearly all other suburbs,
worked. All the men left. This may seem like something of an exaggeration, but
it is not far from the truth. According to informant Lee Shields:
The war had gotten [so] extensive enough that, bad enough, that they just
started counting eyes instead of seeing whether you could see or not.
And [the armed forces] took everybody. So in the later war years any man
who was around town was either old, old, old, or was disabled or handicapped
in some way. So it really was a time the men were away at war.
Although the war made life difficult in many ways,
childhoods in Greenbelt were still pretty happy. Even though her father was off
at war, Patti Hess said:
Q: How do you look back on [your childhood] years?
A: I look back on it as just a very carefree childhood. We lived on
roller skates and bicycles. My girlfriends and I used to play with dolls.
It was a time that allowed a child to be a child whether they were a boy
or a girl. It was just great fun. We'd run around at night after dinner
and play tag or hide-and-go-seek. In high school, during the war, they
had a "teenage canteen" where we used to go after school. We would drop
in. Of course, it was underneath the police station.
Greenbelt was a great place to grow up, as many of the informants
mentioned. Life managed to be good even though part of the family was
at war. Since most of the able-bodied men were fighting, the families
were left without an income. A downside of the suburban ideal in which the
man works and the woman stays home is that if the man dissapears for one
reason or another, the family is in trouble. The women were often quite
unaccustomed to working, but in WWII they adapted by necessity
(figure 4).
Patti Hess spoke:
Q: Did you have to sort of take over [the household]?
A: Well, there were a lot of things that happened. .. my mother went to
work, so that meant a certain. . .she went to work for the Department of
Agriculture (?), and worked out there in Beltsville doing research on
beans or something like that. So that was kind of good(?) for me because
I had some responsibility as far as cleaning house after school, and I
learned something helping her on weekends. I wouldn't say that it was a
tough life that we had, although I think all of us were pretty poor. But
I don't think we were ever really aware of that.
For those few years of the war, women, some for the first time, learned
what life without a husband would be like. As a result, they gained a taste
of independence, and the children gained a sense of responsibility as seen
here. This represented an important change in Greenbelt. Origininally, it was
highly unlikely that a family could live in Greenbelt if the mother worked.
Now the situation changed: the mother would have to work if the family
was to stay there and make the $37/month rent payments. After the war ended,
though, things were back to normal for most families.
One thing that surprised me in particular is the zest with which the male
informants said they had about enlisting. They were actually eager to join
the war despite poor chances of coming back! Bob S. said:
My brother that's a year older than me, graduated high school and couldn't wait until the summer was over so that he could enlist. He was one of the ones
killed in the Pacific during the war. Then my older brother was working in Chicago, when he graduated eariler, and he also volunteered. And after I got
out of high school in '42, then I volunteered. They wouldn't take me right away because they were only taking a certain amount of people in that area at
one time so then I went in February of '43. And then my younger brother graduated in '45, left school early and went into the service. So, nobody was, it
wasn't like these wars we're having now.
Excitement about the war affected everyone in
some way. The home front effort affected the children of Greenbelt especially.
One particular event that shows up in several of these interviews is
the blackouts. 
In the WWII period, many cities would experience "blackouts,"
when it was required that everyone turn off their lights so that enemy planes
couldn't find cities to bomb. Although no cities were ever bombed, blackouts
happened with some frequency. Washington was considered to be a primary target
for the Japanese to bomb, so blackouts in Greenbelt its surrounding areas
we more common than for many areas of the country.
Because Greenbelt had a particularly high
elevation, it was convenient for spotting airplanes during blackouts. An area
was set up on top of the old drug store where the town kids would go every
blackout and watch for airplanes with binoculars. Whenever one would fly over,
they called it in. Although it is hightly doubtful that they ever spotted anything but
an American plane, these blackouts still had an important function. Community
involvement through blackouts and other efforts gave
the people (mostly women and children and older men) a feeling of helping
to fight the war although they were not on the front. In addition to
turning the lights off and looking for airplanes, the residents of Greenbelt
were asked to do many other tasks. They saved grease for some reason
unbeknownst to them.
Rubber and scrap metal were given to the government to help build vehicles for
the armed forces. Newspapers were saved. Did it do any real good? Who knows.
What's important is that the folks at home felt they were making a difference.
I think this is an interesting way in which the
residents of suburbia were collectively fooled by the government. The people
who were interviewed said they were happy during the war, although relatives
were off fighting. No doubt the home front effort helped this feeling,
because the people thought they were helping. This is not the first time the
government has intervened in the affairs of suburbanites. The government helped
to shape suburbia by allowing certain forms of racism (such as blockbusting or
only insuring the loans of whites). Now the media promotes suburbia. Dozens
of saccharine TV shows portray suburbia in an
extremely positive light. Why does the media do this? Because suburbia is so
market-driven, so materialistic, that suburbanites are an excellent audience.
Who else would buy billions of dollars of chemicals for their front lawns or
Lexuses? Suburbia and suburbanites have always been manipulated by greater
forces, including the government and the media. Average people have been the victims
every time, although they still think it can't get any better. Indeed,
the powers of government and media have been successful!
I am curious to know if young suburban men
today would be so eager to enlist as was the man quoted above. Is the
moral fiber of suburbia truly degenerating as some would have it, or are
people basically the same and it's just our perception that has changed?
I have set up a webchat area to discuss this, as well as other suburbia and
Greenbelt-related issues, so click on the button to go to it...
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