Throughout the course we have learned that the number one aspiration of any American is to own a home. Having a home assigns value to individual endeavors, gives the owners a place in the social scale and an opportunity to create a safe haven. In other words, these aspirations that we as Americans carry as individuals and as a society are closely integrated with the need to own a home. By picking their own home, owners feel independent, self sufficient, and at its beginning in the 1800‘s , it even gave them a sense of democratic liberty. (Griffith Winton p. 89) Throughout the U.S home ownership matters it is the peak defining value of American culture; the culmination of the American dream. Americans aspire to reach their goals, make families, have a good life but in the eyes of the American society, no matter the sacrifices or the obvious success, home ownership is needed to validate this. We can see this even on the way realtor firms choose to advertise their services:
This video show cases the idealized concept of owning a home. Even the African American male who “didn’t count with much income” was able to get in touch with a sense of place through home ownership. The people speaking in this video all make the statement that owning their home not only dictates their independence, stability, and dreams but it allows them liberty. Liberty is a value commonly associated with home ownership given the fact a proprietor can do just about anything he wants with his home. The speakers in the video reinforces the views introduced by Wright, “private architecture has a distinctly public side, and that domestic environments can reinforce certain character traits” (Wright p. xv) As it is boldly stated at the very beginning of our reading, Idea House A man’s art is his house, and even though people might not posses artistic capabilities “it is the rare man who can avoid entanglement with those decisions and selective acts which characterize the work of an artist.”(Griffith Winton) Even the woman on the video above stated that she preferred home ownership because the home was hers and this enabled her to do whatever she wanted with it. But is that really enough?
Owning a home doesn’t always translate to complete freedom and by extension happiness. Success and fulfillment are two different things. Having one’s own home doesn’t always provide with the promise of liberty. As put in idea house. “the discourse around the modern house is fundamentally linked to the commercialization of domestic lie.” (Griffith Winton) This is evident by the amount of advertisement that has been put into home creation. Take for example this JC Penney commercial aptly named “American living” this commercial attempts to integrate a romanticization of American society:
What is being advertised here is an American lifestyle in a small town community. The people in this commercial see their desires fulfilled and their aspirations met. What did American living sell exactly? Clothing and Furnishings. Things that applied to the individual and catered to the aspirations that as Americans people are told to have. Note how these commercials do not take individualism into account. Just like the videos we saw of the 1950’s people are again being told to fit in to a certain role. Things that make us diverse as groups are being trampled on in order to create a homogeneous society. The American dream, the aspiration of owning a home and this achieving some sort of personal nirvana thus shows off its dark side. Even people who have never thought of owning homes have bought into the dream. As stated by Wright, other negative things such as “racism, industrial exploitation, the segregation of classes, and a limited role for women” have found their way into the American home.(Wright) Regardless, we have commercials produced that tell us people from all walks of life can own a home yet we have whole entire communities, such as the African American community that has had to fight for the aspiration of becoming a full fledged American and owning a home.
Home ownership has been glorified to the extent that we are no longer allowed to develop our aspirations, as human beings we are told what our aspirations are.
However, Americans have linked self fulfillment with home ownership for long that it is impossible to separate the concept from our psyche. Even those in the most unfortunate walks of life see the owning of a home as a way to self improvement. Like the woman in the video above who is the first in her family to own a home. The fact there is even a agency to help those who’ve been de-franchised says a lot about how America as a society aspires this dream. We have put home in a pedestal and have lifted it up to the heavens. Home ownership symbolizes our aspirations and that is the most important aspect of American life.------------------------------------------------------------------
WORKS CITED
Crouse Michael G , “Giant Houses on a Hill Color proof I”
Griffith Winton, Alexandra. "A man's work is his art: The Walker Art Center's Idea House Project and the Marketing of Domestic Design.." Journal of Design History. 17.4 (2004)
matousek1024, dir. Home Ownership matters. youtube, 2010. Film.
NAREALTORS, , dir. American Living. youtube, 2008. Film.
PDXDevelopmentComm,dir. Operation HOME: African American Alliance for Homeownership
. youtube, 2009. Film.
Ruggieri Alberto, “Hands Lifting house into the sky” Stock Illustration Source.
Wright, Gwendolyn. Building The Dream, A Social History Of Housing In America. The MIT Press, 1983.
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