In 1935 Rexford Tugwell convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to begin a work-relief program that would build communities for the working class. Tugwell hoped that these communities, eventually named the Greenbelt towns, would usher in a model for remaking American culture and society, discarding outdated ideas about individualism and introducing a cooperative spirit better suited for the new realities of the modern age. To make this dream a reality, Tugwell needed the help of skilled design professionals to plan the towns, and these men and women came to the project with their own hopes for the nation. Their vision for the communities tended to be more conservative, reflecting both the ambivalence that the American public felt in this era about the fading of the nation’s rural past and resultant fears that the national character was being undermined by the new mass-production, urban modernity.
This study begins by examining the issues and debates that attended fears about the shifting American identity, modernity, urbanization and suburbs, concepts of “home” and “community,” and personal rights versus the public good. This is followed by an examination of the factors that had led to a housing crisis by the 1930s, various attempts prior to the Greenbelt program to provide improved housing, and an exploration of Tugwell and his rather unconventional ideas. The study then turns to the design professionals and the assumptions, attitudes, and goals that they brought to the project. The final portion consists of an examination and analysis of the towns themselves, and what the designs reveal about the ambivalence and anxiety about modernity during this era. This dissertation has utilized a variety of sources including the written works of Tugwell and the design professionals who worked on the towns as well as outside experts and observers.
The Greenbelt communities reflect Rexford Tugwell’s desires for a rethinking of traditional institutions, as well as the designers’ hopes to rekindle something of the “lost” national character while at the same time preparing the American people for a modern future and illustrate a crucial moment in the nation’s movement toward a new suburban identity.