Biography of william levitt

American real estate developer and suburbia pioneer

William Jaird Levitt (February 11, 1907 – January 28, 1994) was an American real-estate developer and housing pioneer.

What did william levitt do

As president of Levitt & Sons, he is widely credited as the father of modern American suburbia. In 1998 he was named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century."^[1]

Early life and education

Levitt was born in 1907 to a Jewish family in Brooklyn.^[2] His generation was the second since emigrating from Russia and Austria;^[3] the paternal grandparents who immigrated to the United States had been a rabbi grandfather from Russia and a grandmother from Austria-Germany.^[4] His father was Abraham Levitt, a Brooklyn-born^[5] real estate attorney and part-time investor; his mother was Pauline Biederman.

A younger brother, Alfred, was born when William was five years old. William received a public school education at Pu