"Let women build houses": American middle-income, single-family housing in the 1950s and the 1956 Women's Congress on Housing

Kathleen S Mullins, Purdue University

Abstract

This dissertation examines middle-income, single-family housing in the United States in the 1950s. Focusing on the 1956 Women's Congress on Housing, and placing the Congress within the context of suburban middle-income, I explore how the discourse on housing changed in the 1950s as families sought homes that were larger, modern and flexibly designed. As World War II drew to a close, the nation faced an unprecedented housing crisis with an estimated 16 million people in need of housing. Primary causes behind the need were two decades of economic depression and world war that virtually halted the home building and maintenance industry, and the formation of new families as men went off to the battlefields. The need for housing became even greater in the post-war years as marriages reached record numbers. In the era of the "baby boom," families both matured in age and expanded in size, contributing to the desire, and the need, for homes that better fit the needs of America's middle-income, modern families. Prefabrication was critical to housing millions of families quickly. This dissertation studies National Homes Corporation for an example of the response by the housing prefabrication industry to both the immediate post-war crisis, then recommendations resulting from the 1956 Women's Congress on Housing. National Homes Corporation, headquartered in Lafayette, Indiana for most of its existence, became a Fortune 500 company in the 1950s, ultimately producing more than 750,000 dwelling units over the course of the Corporation's existence. The 1956 Women's Congress on Housing, convened by the Housing and Home Finance Agency, was the only gathering hosted by the federal government. The editors of McCall's magazine hosted a Congress for Better Living annually from 1957 through 1961. The latter congresses also included men and teenagers. Today, our nation continues to reel from an economic recession and housing crisis that began in 2008. Since then, millions of homes have been foreclosed and millions more have lost significant value. I end this dissertation by posing the question of whether the housing crisis of the twenty-first century is rooted in the discourse on housing of the 1950s when the desire for a home that was larger, more modern and more flexible set America's middle-income families on a quest for an ever larger and newer dwelling.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Teaford, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American studies|American history|Womens studies

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