F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a classic work of American literature and I should be everlastingly grateful that the recent movie adaptation has engendered so much attention.
How many people who saw the movie or attended a Roaring 20's-themed party read the book or know anything about the author and what the author had to say about what James Tuslow Adams first popularized with the phrase "The American Dream" in 1931 (of which Levittown became the oft-sited quintessential example of the 1950's version).
The Great Gatsby is not about grace, elegance, class, or style. It's about the utter futility of accumulating wealth merely for the sake of accumulating wealth. Gatsby becomes rich under dubious circumstances, employs that affluence to no end other than as a social status symbol, and ends up dead in his luxurious swimming pool after his flashy luxury car is involved in a fatal hit-and-run.
The novel is worth reading by historians and students of American culture because it shows that as early as 1925, the American Dream had a dark side. When people settled in the suburbs after World War II for example, after experiencing opportunities they could never have dreamt of in the throes of Depression era poverty, their lives still centered around work, family, church, and community rather than gadgets, professional athletes, and pop culture icons. They defined "the good life" in terms of close-knit families, good neighbors, and good schools - not the exponentially-expanding and utopian pursuit of cars, boats, McMansions, and vacation homes. They didn't know about the personal lives of every Hollywood celebrity but they did know their next door neighbors, and children's teachers. Their patriotism was grounded in the fact that their country liberated other peoples from Germany, Italy, and Japan's warlords and stood-down Soviet rulers with like-kind ambitions rather than mindless jingo that calls bombing countries that never attacked us "defending freedom".
Fitzgerald saw the potential for hubris even before it actually manifested itself. In the April 3, 1927 issue of The World he told Harry Salpeter that "the idea that we're the greatest people in the world because we have the most money in the world is ridiculous. Wait until this wave of prosperity is over. Wait until the next war on the Pacific or against some European combination."
William Levitt, his own Gatsby-like lifestyle notwithstanding, created something that was a template for an authentic and meaningful "good life": the 1950's Joe Average in his Levitt & Sons house who was the antithesis of what Gatsby and his country club set represented. Times have changed, however, and time will tell.
Want to learn more about the history of Levittown and the surrounding communities? Visit www.levittownhistoricalsociety.org
