american backyard

In summer, our yards are our place to dine, relax, and spend some quality time with our families. They house our swimming pools, patios, playhouses for our children, and more importantly, they’re part of the classic American Dream. But this obsession with thick green plots isn’t as old as you might think. The concept of backyards as a spot of leisure and fun only dates back to the early 1950s. 

Following World War II, Americans started moving out of the center of big cities and settling in suburbs, and that is where the story of the American backyard begins. The implementation of the 40-hour work week, better white-collar jobs, and higher wages meant suburb residents had enough disposable income to spend on DIY projects. For instance: transforming their backyard into a green well-kept lawn. This DIY trend became popular to the point where owning a backyard was seen as a symbol of affluence. 

But before this fashion took root, American backyards served a strictly utilitarian purpose. You’d have found most families growing vegetable gardens, raising chicken, pigs, and sometimes even cows, storing supplies underground, and dumping the garbage in their backyards. Outhouses were another essential part of the backyard in those days. Said another way, the backyard was a workplace and a place to support the household economy.

Great Backyard With Swimming Pool. American Suburban Luxury House Stock Photo By ©iriana88w 124214094

A Typical American Backyard With Child Playground A Typical American Backyard With

Photographs from the late 19th century reveal backyards that contain small structures like barns and storage sheds. Back then, the only outdoor leisure activities happened on the porch, which was stretched in front of the house. This trend lasted until the 1920s when radios (and with it, indoor entertainment) became more popular.

The backyard’s status as a functional space prevailed up until World War II, and even after that, it would be years before the American yard is seen as a site for rest and relaxation. Post World War Two, the economy rebounded, and people started spending their new-found disposable income on things once considered luxuries. 

And this ‘spending’ cleared the backyard of the clutter mentioned above. Here’s how. As modern refrigeration became more common, the need for underground storage disappeared. The same happened with sewage infrastructure and outhouses. 

American Backyard Images, Stock Photos & Vectors

More to the point, backyards were critical functioning components of households because homes back then were self-sufficient and self-contained. But now that everyday necessities didn’t have to be grown, raised, or collected, they could be bought in bulk quantities and stored, the yard was repurposed. It was clean of heaps of trash, outhouses, chicken coops, and even vegetable gardens for the most part. 

With this freshly-minted consumer culture, innovations, and affordable automobiles (that were parked in the garage which separated the street front from the yard in the back), paved the way for the modern backyard that we know and love.

It’s 50’s or the 60’s now, and the general population has got all this free space. And it wasn’t just free space either. With consumerism, came more free time since homeowners didn’t have to labor endlessly in their yards to support their families. This phenomenon facilitated the shift from a strictly utilitarian point of view made the backyard a mark of prosperity and high status — ultimately becoming part of the American Dream in the early 60s. 

America's Backyard: The United States And Latin America From The Monroe Doctrine To The War On Terror: Livingstone, Grace: 9781848132146: Amazon.com: Books

Elliot Ross American Backyard

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