A Public Housing Utopia: The Greenbelt Museum (S02/E02)

Museums in Strange Places

Nov 14 2018 • 46 mins

Tucked among other Maryland suburbs outside Washington, D.C., the cute little town of Greenbelt has a surprisingly radical history. It was one of three “green towns” built under the New Deal Era Resettlement Administration, and it was supposed to be a new way of living, a utopia. Was it really a utopia? And how did the model hold up over time? I discover this and more during my visit to the Greenbelt Museum, housed in one of the original 1937 low-income row homes.

This episode is sponsored by The Lyndhurst Group.

The featured song in this episode is by Katy Starr.

Documentary clips from a 1939 documentary The City.

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Find more information on the museum and photos on my website, hhethmon.com.

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