The G.I. Bill of Rights offered qualified vets job training, a paid year-long sabbatical, educational funds, and perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to buy their own inexpensive home even if they lacked savings. Many minorities were barred from enjoying these benefits due to housing discrimination, job and educational discrimination, and because 60 percent of African-American veterans were given dishonorable discharges from military service and were thus ineligible for benefits. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) also fueled the dual process of empowerment for the white working class, and the exclusion of minorities from suburban life by offering developers low-cost loans to build and encouragement to write restrictive racial covenants into the deeds of the new homes.
Using the same methods of mass production as were used to produce so many of the new "labor-saving" technological devices of the post-war period, Levitt's small, two-bedroom, one-bath homesturned out spare, plain, and box-like. The large kitchen "picture" window of the original homes, soon hailed as the central focus of suburban life, faced out to the front lawn, while the bedrooms and other more private areas were arranged toward the back.
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