Levittown’s Shame: Suburbanization and the Myers Family’s Struggle for Integration in America’s Iconic Suburb Open Access
Rovner, Jarett (Spring 2019)
Published
Abstract
This thesis generates a holistic, day-by-day account of the experiences of the Myers family, the first black family to move into the all-white, pre-planned community of Levittown, Pennsylvania. In August of 1957, William and Daisy Myers decided to move into Levittown, Pennsylvania, setting off a series of protests from white residents of the community. While the Myers family’s story has been largely overlooked by scholars, some contemporary historians have gestured toward the Myers story as an example of massive white resistance in the American North. Historians such as Thomas Sugrue, Matthew Lassiter, and Joseph Crespino have all written about 1957 events in Levittown with the goal of broadening the spatial scope of historical inquiry into white resistance to civil rights initiatives. They seek to draw parallels between the postwar white resistance found in the American South and the American North. This thesis seeks to challenge the notion that Levittown is merely a transplant of white resistance to civil rights in the South found in the North.
In order to accomplish this, this thesis draws upon existing scholarship as well many unutilized or underutilized sources, such as recently published memoirs, newspaper articles, and archival material from the Urban Archives at Temple University and the Bucks County Historical Society Archives. This thesis also places Levittown in the greater context of Bucks County. By analyzing the reactions of protestors, local and state politicians, religious groups, and labor groups in Levittown, this thesis seeks to describe how this incident of white resistance differs from other instances of white resistance to integration in different parts of the country. Unlike in other parts of the country, Levittown politicians and community groups condemned the actions of the white protestors and came to the defense of the Myerses.
Table of Contents
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………....1
Chapter 1: Bucks County and Trends of Suburbanization……………………………………….7
Chapter 2: Levittown 1957………………………………………………………………………25
Chapter 3: The Aftermath……………………………………………………………….……….59
Afterword: Beyond Levittown……………………………………………………...……………71
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………..76
About this Honors Thesis
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