Title: City and Suburb | National Museum of American History
Headings: 
The Sprawling Metropolis
The Automobile Shapes the Suburbs
Aerial view of Park Forest, Illinois, 1952
Suburban Family Life
Commuters returning from Chicago on the Illinois Central, Park Forest, Illinois, 1954
Building the backyard barbecue, Park Forest, Illinois, mid-1950s. Courtesy of Park Forest Public Library
Diversity in the Suburbs
Letter to Park Forest Village employees, 1959
Yvonne and Leonard Robinson, about 2000
The Robinsons' Park Forest Home, about 1994
Suburban Critics
Moving In
“New, individual homes for sale,” advertisement, 1951
Ford Mustang Pedal Car, 1960s
View object  record
Schwinn Panther Bicycle, 1953
View object  record
The Automobile and the City
Ford Country Squire station wagon, 1955
View object  record

Content: When completed, the Plaza was surrounded on three sides by a sea  of parking spaces. Suburban Family Life
The family car played a pivotal role in the daily life of America’s postwar suburbs. Most early Park Foresters were young couples with small children and one car. Fathers commuted long distances every day, mainly to jobs in downtown Chicago. Many  commuters traveled by company-sponsored vans, car pools, and rush-hour-only public transportation in order to leave the car with the family. The car gave women more mobility and more power to structure their own days. Park Forest was a bridge between the old railroad and the new automobile suburbs. Many early residents took the train to jobs in Chicago. But by 1960 more than half of Park Forest’s downtown commuters traveled by car. Park Forest developers tried  to convince the Illinois Central to build a spur into the center of the community, but the railroad argued that commuter service wasn’t profitable enough.