Making Long Island: A History of Growth and the American Dream - Paperback

by Lawrence R. Samuel (Author)

Discover the history of the development of Long Island and its intimate relationship with New York City. /

Beginning in the Roaring Twenties, Wall Street money looked eastward to Nassau and Suffolk counties looking generate wealth from a land boom. After the Great Depression and World War II, Long Island was the site of the creation of the quintessential postwar American suburb, Levittown. Levittown and its spinoff suburban communities served as a primary symbol of the American dream through affordable home ownership for the predominately White middle class and established a core attribute of the national mythology. Starting in the 1960s, the dream began to dissolve, as the postwar economic engine ran out of steam and Long Island became as much urban as suburban. Author Lawrence R. Samuel charts how the island evolved over the decades and largely detached itself from New York City to become a self-sustaining entity with its own challenges, exclusions and triumphs.

Author Biography

Lawrence R. Samuel is the founder of AmeriCulture, a Miami- and New York City-based consultancy dedicated to thought leadership relating to the past, present and future of American culture. He holds a PhD in American studies and an MA in English from the University of Minnesota and an MBA in marketing from the University of Georgia and was a Smithsonian Institution Fellow. His previous books include The End of the Innocence: The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair (2007), New York City 1964: A Cultural History (2014), Tudor City: Manhattan's Historic Residential Enclave (2019), Dead on Arrival in Manhattan: Stories of Unnatural Demise from the Past Century (2021) and many others.