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

Museums in Strange Places - A podcast by Hannah Hethmon

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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. DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPT Find more information on the museum and photos on my website, hhethmon.com. If you enjoy Museums in Strange Places, please help me keep it going by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing this episode with a friend. Let me know what you think by sending me a tweet @hannah_rfh. Interested in starting a podcast at your organization? Check out my new book, Your Museum Needs a Podcast: A Step by Step Guide to Podcast on a Budget for Museums, History Organizations, and Cultural Nonprofits.