The life and achievements of William Jaird Levitt. This was a report from school which i posted online so that it may help others on knowing William Levitt . Sources of the following files have been in the internet which i merged and made a powerpoint presentation on it. Credits to Wikipedia and Youtube.

1. WILLIAM JAIRD LEVITT
FEBRUARY 11, 1907 – JANUARY 28, 1994
"ANY DAMN FOOL CAN BUILD HOMES. WHAT COUNTS IS HOW MANY YOU CAN SELL FOR HOW LITTLE“
-WILLIAM LEVITT

2. LIFE OF WILLIAM JAIRD LEVITT
▪ February 11, 1907 – January 28, 1994. Died at age 86 due to
a progressive kidney disease.
▪ Father - Abraham Levitt
▪ Mother - Pauline Biederman
▪ Younger brother - Alfred Levitt
▪ Education - Public School 44 and Boys High School. Attended
New York University for three years.
▪ Marriage - Rhoda Kirshner 1929. Alice Kenny 1959. Simone
Korchin 1969.

3. WORLD WAR II
▪Levitt served in the Navy as a lieutenant in the Seabees.
After returning from the war, he saw a need for
affordable housing for returning veterans.
▪America's post-war prosperity and baby boom had
created a crisis of affordable housing.
▪Levitt was the cover story in TIME Magazine for July 3,
1950, with the tag line "For Sale: a new way of life.“
▪In 1941, the Levitt’s won a government contract to
provide 2,350 housing units for defense workers in
Norfolk, Virginia.

4. LEVITT & SONS
▪In 1929, his father, Abraham Levitt, founded a real-estate
development company called Levitt & Sons. Levitt & Sons
built mostly upscale housing on and around Long Island,
New York in the 1930s.
▪William Levitt served as company president after seeing
its potential.
▪Levitt & Sons built their first huge housing development
near Hempstead, Long Island and named it Levittown
▪Levitt sold Levitt & Sons to ITT International Telephone
and Telegraph in 1968 for a reported $90 million.

5. SUBURBIA
▪ The appeal of living beyond the noise, pollution,
overcrowding and disease of the city, while still close enough
to enjoy the benefits of its industrial and cultural vitality.
▪ In the 1920s, the first suburban boom was occurring with
nearly 900,000 new homes a year springing up in new
communities outside city lines. Levitt & Sons built their first
huge housing development near Hempstead, Long Island and
named it Levittown.
▪ How and why did suburbia become such an iconic and
beloved part of American life?

6. LEVITTOWN
▪The first Levittown has become a legend in the history of
the American suburbs.
▪Levittown, which ultimately included 17,000 homes on
7.3 square miles of land. Alfred Levitt created the mass
production techniques and designed the homes and the
layout of the development, with its curving streets.
▪William was the financier and promoter, who persuaded
lawmakers to rewrite the laws that made Levittown
possible.

7. ▪The houses, which were in the Cape Cod and ranch house
styles, sat on a seventh-of-an-acre lot. They had 750
square feet with two bedrooms, a living room and a
kitchen, an unfinished second floor and no garage.
▪Levitt revolutionized the home construction industry by
sifting through outdated building codes and union rules
and using new technologies to get quality building jobs
completed quickly and cheaply.
▪The success of Levittown depended on huge government
assistance.
▪Discrimination in Levittown to African-American.

10. LEGACY
▪ William Levitt came to symbolize the new suburban growth
with his use of mass-production techniques to construct large
developments of houses, eponymously named Levittown’s,
selling for under $10,000.
▪ He was building one suburban house every 16 minutes.
Because of that he was named "The King of Suburbia" and
"Inventor of the Suburb.“
▪ Levitt compared his successes to those of Henry Ford's
automobile assembly line. In achieving his housing
development success, he also became one of the visible
examples of the prevailing business practice of many
contemporary real estate developers of the era.