- Definition & History, Effects & Events of the US Civil War from Various Perspectives, William Monroe Trotter: Quotes & Biography, Andrew Carnegie: Steel, Net Worth & Philanthropy, Neil Armstrong: Biography, Facts & Moon Landing, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. Sign Up. Others responded to complaints by people in the neighborhood and evicted the inhabitants and burned the shacks. The Depression increased the demand for such assistance exponentially. This was supervised by Mayor Jackson, who also led the Vigilance Committee. For example, newspapers used to shield the homeless from the cold were called Hoover blankets, while empty pants pockets pulled inside outdemonstrating no coins in ones pocketswere Hoover flags., When soles wore out of shoes, the cardboard used to replace them was dubbed Hoover leather, and cars pulled by horses because gas was an unaffordable luxury were called Hoover wagons.. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. As elsewhere in the country, Washington State's Communist Party helped to organize the unemployed into active political and social formations. Report of Shack Elimination Committee (April 14, 1941) At that time, President Herbert Hoover increasingly became, in the eyes of many Americans, a grim and inept leader. [2] Jesse Jackson, "The Story of Seattle's Hooverville," in Calvin F. Schmid, Social Trends in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1944), 286-93. By the early 1940s, with the economy rebounding during World War II, many Hoovervilles had fewer residents and most were torn down. For example, one of the eight Hoovervilles in Seattle, Washington, stood from 1931 to 1941. Home Facts Privacy About Blog Contact Terms. Here are ten key facts to know about Herbert Hoover, who he was as a person and his tenure as president. All the Hoovervilles were 'eradicated' at the end of the Great Depression in 1941. Letter from Housing Authority to City Council (March 4, 1941) "Hoovervilles," shanty towns of unemployed men, sprung up all over the nation, named after President Hoover's insufficient relief during the crisis. The answer to this question is practically anywhere. Brief History of Seattle. Library of Congress. Desperate for shelter, homeless citizens built shantytowns in and around cities across the nation. St. Louis, Missouri, and Seattle, Washington, were home to two of the countrys largest and longest-standing Hoovervilles. Around 15,000 men joined the movement, many of whom came from far away and arrived in the area by illegally riding on railroad freight trains. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. Nonwhites comprised 29% of the colony's population, including 120 Filipinos, 29 African Americas, 25 Mexicans, 4 Native Americans, 4 South Americans, and 2 Japanese. Others were simply holes dug in the ground covered with pieces of tin. They posed health risks to their inhabitants as well as to those living nearby, but there was little that local governments or health agencies could do. Commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, the U.S. Army burned the Hooverville and drove the veterans out with tanks, tear gas, and fixed bayonets. Join 51,000+ happy teachers and students who use our teaching worksheets and resources every day. (2021, December 6). Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. University of Washington: The Great Depression in Washington State.Hoovervilles in Seattle. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis: Chapters 1-5 | Summary & Analysis, Themes in Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis | Examples & Analysis, Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis | Summary & Characters of Bud, Not Buddy, Bud's Rules in Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis | Significance & Analysis, Vietnamization Policy & Significance | Nixon's Plan to Withdraw American Forces. Donald Roy created this map of Seattle's Hooverville. A shantytown, also known as a Hooverville (named for U.S. President Herbert Hoover), was located in Seattle, Washington, during the Great Depression. To find out more, see our, Download the Hooverville Facts & Worksheets, Hooverville Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com, Resources created by teaching professionals. It comes from the New York Public Library. When disaster struck, Americans looked to their President for leadership and compassion, but Hoover seemed to be short on both counts. The Depression was blamed on President Herbert Hoover, after whom the town was named after, as coined by Charles Michelson. Out of desperation, the homeless began building camps of makeshift shacks near cities across the nation. He described the population as fluid in 1938, owing to men selling their homes to newcomers and moving on. And hundreds of thousands--no one knows how many--took to the streets, finding what shelter they could, under bridges, in culverts, or on vacant public land where they built crude shacks. "Nobody Paid any Attention": The Economic Marginalization of Seattle's Hooverville, by Dustin Neighly, Seattles Hooverville: The Failure of Effective Unemployment Relief in the Early 1930s by Magic Demirel, Hooverville: A Study of a Community of Homeless Men in Seattle by Donald Francis Roy, The Story of Seattle's Hooverville by Jesse Jackson, "Mayor" of Hooverville, Seattle Municipal Archives Hooverville Documents. 10 Question Quiz. Life in these Hoovervilles was difficult and caused many people to migrate throughout the United States in search of better opportunities elsewhere. As the Depression deepened, the sheer number of homeless people became overwhelming. Check out the Siteseen network of educational websites. Beyond the waters lie two rugged mountain ranges, the Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east. A Tarpaper Carthage: Interpreting Hooverville. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. This was Port of Seattle property that had been occupied by Skinner and Eddy shipyard during World War I. This sort of fatalism was especially apparent in the language that developed around the iconic representation of the Great Depression --the Hooverville. Interesting Facts About the Great Depression The stock market lost almost 90% of its value between 1929 and 1933. Some of the men who were forced to live in these conditions possessed construction skills, and were able to build their houses out of stone. Absolutely anything that would provide shelter. 01 of 10 First Quaker President Hoover was the son of a blacksmith, Jesse Clark Hoover, and a Quaker minister, Huldah Minthorn Hoover. Hoover also received criticism for signing, in June 1930, the controversial Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, which imposed a high tariff on foreign goods in an effort to prevent them from competing with U.S.-made products on the domestic market. Writer John Steinbeck featured a family who lived in a California Hooverville and sought farm work in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939. It was a period of the global economic crisis that began with a significant drop in stock prices in the United States. A "Hooverville" is the popular name for slum towns built by people without homes during the Great Depression. Protest against Hooverville evictions (October 10, 1938) Next: Unemployed Citizens League and Poverty Activism. "; It began after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Excerpt from "Hooverville: A Study of a Community of Homeless Men in Seattle" by Donald Francis Roy (1935) I feel like its a lifeline. Public reaction to the Hoovervilles added to President Hoovers general unpopularity, leading to his landslide defeat by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. Filipinos and Mexicans were the only ones who were separated, but this was due to language rather than racial discrimination. However, prosperity was soon replaced by poverty and optimism by desperation following the stock market crash of October 1929 and the general failure of the nations banking system. The decision led to the establishment of the Shack Elimination Committee by the City Council. Some Hoovervilles even received assistance from churches and private donors. succeed. This website helped me pass! var current_date = new Date(); month_value = current_date.getMonth(); day_value = current_date.getDate(); year_value = current_date.getFullYear(); document.write( months[month_value] ); was the 31st American President who served in office from March 4, 1929 to March 4, 1933. Link will appear as Hooverville Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, October 18, 2018. The inhabitants of the Hoovervilles and shantytowns in the 1930s were deprived of many of these basic needs - for additional facts refer to Poverty in the Great Depression. The Great Depression started on Wall Street. Most Hoovervilles operated in an informal, unorganized way, but the bigger ones would sometimes put forward spokespersons to serve as a liaison between the camp and the larger community. People experiencing homelessness made them from scraps of wood, tin, tar, and cardboard, and named . Most of them did not find work. [9], Regardless of the gender of the residents, Hoovervilles served as a common ground for many different nationalities and ethnicities. The New Deal enacted special relief programs aimed at the homeless under the Federal Transient Service (FTS), which operated from 1933 to 1939. Twelve million Americans, about 25% of the normal labor force, were out of work and many suffered poverty, deprivation and homelessness. Hooverville residents had nowhere else to go, and public sympathy, for the most part, was with them. Usually built on vacant land, the camps were largely tolerated by city authorities. His records show populations of Japanese, Mexican, Filipino, Native American, Costa Rican, Chilean, and Black men. [3] Men, women and children alike lived in Hoovervilles. Homeless people were forced to live in absolute poverty in the Hoovervilles or shantytowns in the 1930s. Interesting Facts About Hoovervilles During the Great Depression The Bonus Army of veterans built a large Hooverville in Washington D.C. that housed around 15,000 people. Who lived in a Hooverville or Shanty Town? Dwellings in the Hoovervilles were little more than shacks built of discarded bricks, wood, tin, and cardboard. Nearly 29 percent of the population was non-white. The nickname 'Hooverville' was given to the shanty towns that sprang up across the nation during the Great Depression. A 'Hooverville' on waterfront of Seattle, Washington, March 1933. He had first achieved fame during World War I when he ran the U.S. Food Administration, and his managerial skills, relentless work ethic, and ability to feed both the troops and the homefront simultaneously won him enormous praise. While the goal of the tariffs was to protect U.S.-made products from foreign competition, most countries retaliated by raising their tariffs on U.S. goods. He counted 639 residents in March of that year, all but seven of them men. 'Hooverville' was the nickname for any variety of makeshift shelters for homeless people, mostly victims of the Great Depression from 1929 to 1941. WATCH: America: The Story of Us on HISTORY Vault. Interesting Facts About Hoovervilles During the Great Depression The Bonus Army of veterans built a large Hooverville in Washington D.C. that housed around 15,000 people. Hoover also didn't think it would work and that a crisis such as this one would have to blow over on its own. This was handled by an elected Vigilance Committee-- consisting of two whites, two blacks, and two Filipinos-- led by a white Texas native and former lumberjack named Jesse Jackson, who came to be known as the unofficial "Mayor" of Hooverville. Named for President Herbert Hoover, the ramshackle settlements ranged in size and were set up across the nation. This was at a time when most workers didn't have access to unemployment benefits, health care, or Social Security--in fact, none of the programs that could provide that kind of help even existed. They were named after Herbert Hoover, who was President of the United States during the onset of the Depression and was widely blamed for it. Including the veterans, their families, and other supporters, the crowd of protesters eventually grew to nearly 45,000 people. months[3] = "Check out the interesting and diverse websites produced and created by the international publisher in the Siteseen network. Most were unemployed laborers and timber workers, few of whom had held any jobs in the previous two years. But they eventually returned because they had nowhere else to go, and they were soon allowed to stay, owing to public sympathy. A Hoover blanket was a pile of old newspapers used as bedding. READ MORE:Did New Deal Programs Help End the Great Depression? Seattle lies on a narrow strip of land between the salt waters of Puget Sound and the fresh waters of Lake Washington. The suffering in the Great Depression, from 1929 to 1941, is hard for modern Americans to wrap their minds around. The quality and livability of structures built in Hooverville camps varied widely. The reaction to all of this was often characterized by a grim sort of humor, sometimes represented by popular songs like the 1930's 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?' [2], Tacoma's "Hollywood-on-the-Tideflats" was burned by city officials in May 1942, but was soon reoccupied and rebuilt. The nation turned to Herbert Hoover expecting help, but he had none to give. There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation, he wrote of the squalled camp. This Hooverville thrived because it was funded by private donations. The camps, dubbed Hoovervilles after Republican President Hoover, often sprang up near charity operated soup kitchens and rivers for drinking water and limited sanitary needs. Roy documents a unique spirit of tolerance and amiability between ethnic groups. Most men with construction skills were able to build their houses out of stone, but those who could not resort to making their residences out of wood from the materials available to them, most of which were recycled. Roys 1934 census provides a breakdown of the population by ethnicity and nationality. Erected by unemployed lumberjacks on the tidal flats of the Port of Seattle, the encampment covered nine acres and grew to house up to 1,200 people. They are crowded, dirty, miserable, and they are places where the homeless gather to build temporary homes. Renters fell behind and faced eviction. Summary and Definition: The Shanty Towns, known as Hoovervilles, sprang up across the nation during the Great Depression (1929 - 1941). Hoover Pullmans were rusted railroad boxcars used as dwellings. Facts about Shantytowns and HoovervillesThe following fact sheet contains interesting facts and information on Shantytowns and Hoovervilles. In May 1942, shortly after Seattle destroyed its Hooverville, the Tacoma Fire Department burned fifty of the "Hollywood" shacks. If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source. Hundreds of Hoovervilles were established across the country during the 1930s. var months = new Array(12); They were built by unemployed impoverished Americans that had been made homeless and had nowhere else to live. What were the rickety shacks in Hoovervilles and Shantytowns built with? Excerpt from "Seattle's Hooverville" by Leslie D. Erb (1935), [1] Donald Francis Roy, "Hooverville: A Study of a Community of Homeless Men in Seattle," (M.A. This drain reservoir became the site of an informal camp established by a few homeless people, but they were quickly evicted. Mark has a Ph.D in Social Science Education. A 'Hoover blanket' was a newspaper, covering a homeless man on a city bench; a 'Hoover flag' was a turned-out pants pocket, a sure sign of pennilessness. Small camps and sites in towns sprang up in any available space. READ MORE:Life for the Average Family During the Great Depression, In addition to the term Hooverville, President Hoovers name was used derisively in other ways during the Great Depression. A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! [6], After 1940, the economy recovered, unemployment fell, and shanty housing eradication programs destroyed all the Hoovervilles. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards. "Hoovervilles" were hundreds of crude campgrounds built across the United States by poverty stricken people who had lost their homes because of the Great Depression of the 1930s. At its peak, roughly 25%, maybe more, of the American work force was unemployed. In 1932, Hooverville was established in Anacostia, District of Columbia, to house a group of. As the optimism of the 1920s gave way to fear and desperation, Americans looked to the federal government for relief. However, the countrys 31st president, Republican Herbert Hoover, who took office in March 1929, believed that self-reliance and self-help, not government intervention, were the best means to meet citizens needs. The name was a reference to Herbert Hoover who was the President of the United States during the at the start of the Depression and widely blamed for it. However, most buildings were little more than crude shelters thrown together from wooden crates, cardboard boxes, tar paper, scrap metal, and other fire-prone discarded materials. No one knows, but there were literally millions of homeless people during the Great Depression so it seems reasonable to estimate the number as several thousands. Exhibit B: Location and Number of Shacks (March 5, 1941) These areas were frequently on private lands, but the trespassing settlements were simply ignored as the crisis demanded. months[0] = "Discover the vast range of useful, leisure and educational websites published by the Siteseen network. Some of the homeless found shelter inside empty conduits and water mains. WW1 veterans formed what was called the Bonus Army and 40,000 people descended on Washington D.C. and set up makeshift camps on areas such as the Anacostia Flats. The Red Scare of the 1920s History & Overview | What was the First Red Scare? They usually had a small stove, bedding and a couple of simple cooking implements. The Great Depression caused social upheaval and political unrest. Back to History for Kids. Encampments and shantytowns often referred to as tent citieswith similarities to Hoovervillesbegan appearing in parts of California, Arizona, Tennessee, Florida, Washington and other states. He was proud of the self-built community, saying "Hooverville is the abode of the forgotten man." "; KidsKonnect uses a secure SSL connection to encrypt your data and we only work with trusted payment processors Stripe and PayPal. Excerpt from "The Story of Hooverville, In Seattle" by Jesse Jackson, Mayor of Hooverville (1935) The people who lived in a Hooverville or Shanty Town were men, women and children, black and white, from all walks of life, who had been evicted from their homes and made homeless due to unemployment in the Great Depression. This building housed a mayora's office and a commissary, or grocery store. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Not ready to purchase a subscription? Credit was extended to many so that they could enjoy the new inventions of the day, such as washing machines, refrigerators and automobiles. Usually built on the edges of larger cities, hundreds of thousands of people lived in the many Hooverville camps. Between 1929 and 1932, the value of world trade declined by more than half. He believed this would represent a philosophical shift in what the government was supposed to be for--namely, to ensure a level playing field for economic opportunity, but not to regulate or take over the functions of the market. Courtesy Tacoma Public Library. Hoovervilles varied in size from a few hundred residents to thousands of people in larger cities like New York City, Washington, D.C., and Seattle, Washington. However, understanding that the campers had nowhere else to go, and fearing that they might still fall victim to the Great Depression themselves, most more affluent people were willing to tolerate the Hoovervilles and their impoverished residents. One of the important events during his presidency was the emergence of the Shanty Town during the Great Depression. Probably the most famous Hooverville was the one founded on Anacostia Flats, just outside Washington, D.C., in 1932. Second New Deal Purpose & Programs | What was the Second New Deal? Advertisement. About this quiz: All the questions on this quiz are based on information that can be found on the page at The Great Depression - Hoovervilles . They cut down dramatically on their purchases, but less buying meant fewer goods needed, so companies didn't need so many employees. President Herbert Hoover & the Great Depression, America During the Great Depression: The Dust Bowl, Unemployment & Cultural Issues, End of WWI, the Treaty of Versailles & the League of Nations, Ku Klux Klan Nativism & Eugenics | Movement & History. [1] There were hundreds of Hoovervilles across the country during the 1930s.[2]. This download is exclusively for KidsKonnect Premium members!To download this worksheet, click the button below to signup (it only takes a minute) and you'll be brought right back to this page to start the download! Some shelters were little more than holes in the ground covered with tin or cardboard. By 1932, Herbert Hoovers last full year in office, the U.S. unemployment rate had soared to 25%, with more than 15 million people without jobs or homes. One of the most famous ways in which people migrated during the timeframe of the Great Depression was by 'riding the rails' on trains. In 1933, it was 25%, with 1 out of every 4 people out of work. Homelessness was present before the Great Depression, and was a common sight before 1929. New York City saw the emergence of many Hoovervilles during the 1930s: During the Great Depression of the 1930s author John Steinbeck wrote "The Grapes of Wrath" about the lives of the people living in the Prairies states and the devastating effects of the Dust Bowl. [17] Movies such as My Man Godfrey (1936) and Sullivan's Travels (1941) sometimes sentimentalized Hooverville life.[18]. Most large cities built municipal lodging houses for the homeless, but the Depression exponentially increased demand. Bootleggers were becoming rich on the profits of illegal alcohol sales and violence was on the rise. Its unofficial mayor was Jesse Jackson, who led the city in tolerating the homeless and imposed lax building and sanitation regulations. Some were as small as a few hundred people while others, in bigger metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C. and New York City, boasted thousands of inhabitants. Although people would often use castoff lumber and building materials, more often than not Hooverville structures were built with cardboard, tar paper, and other comparatively flimsy elements. By the middle of 1941, Roosevelts New Deal programs had increased employment to the point that all but a few Hoovervilles had been abandoned and demolished. In his famous novel the Joad family briefly settles into a Hooverville in California. When a new mayor took office in 1932, owing his election in part to support of the Unemployed Citizen's League, Seattle's Hooverville gained a measure of official tolerance that allowed it to survive and grow. months[10] = "Looking for accurate facts and impartial information? St. Louis, Missouri, was the site of the largest Hooverville in America. Each Hooverville was unique. Other Hoovervilles also developed: one on the side of Beacon Hill where today I-5 passes; one in the Interbay area next to where the city used to dump its garbage; and two others along 6th Avenue in South Seattle. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); By 1932, between one and two million American people were homeless. The Seattle City Council decided to close Hooverville in May 1941, despite the increased reliance on it for shelter. Hoovervilles In the 1930s, Hoovervilles (shantytowns) formed coast to coast in cities of the United States. The publics frustration with President Hoovers refusal to deal with the Depression peaked in the spring of 1932 when an estimated 15,000 World War I veterans and their families established a Hooverville along the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. On June 17, 1932, many of the veterans, known as the Bonus Army, marched on the U.S. Capitol demanding payment the badly needed WWI combat bonuses the government had promised them. As fears grew, many Americans believed the U.S. government could and should do something to help. "Hooverville" became a common term for shacktowns and homeless encampments during the Great Depression. Around 11,000 banks failed during the Great Depression, leaving many with no savings. Hoovervilles lacked the services found in typical towns. Hooverville was a small town founded by homeless people in the United States during the Great Depression. [3] Report of the Sanitation Divison December 31, 1935 as quoted in Excerpt from the Health Department Annual Report 1935, Seattle Municipal Archives: http://www.seattle.gov/CityArchives/Exhibits/Hoover/1935ar.htm (accessed December 29, 2009), [4] Report of Shack Elimination Committee (April 14, 1941), Seattle Municipal Archives (accessed December 29, 2009), Civil Rights and Labor History Consortium. Even before the Great Depression, there were homeless people, but most large cities were able to build municipal lodging houses for the homeless. Where were Hoovervilles situated? Who Were the Democratic Presidents of the United States? Herbert Hoover was a rising star of American politics when he won the presidential election of 1928. While private and corporate philanthropy provided some assistance during the early 1930s, poverty continued to increase rapidly. During the Great Depression, other Hoovervilles were built in. It was named after Herbert Hoover, an American politician who was the president during the first years of the Great Depression. He offers fascinating observations about social mores and culture of the community, including the easy racial relations and tolerance of homosexuality. The term itself was first used in 1930 by Charles Michelson, the Publicity Chief of the Democratic National Committee when he published an article in the New York Times referring to a homeless camp in Chicago, Illinois, as Hooverville. Before long, the term was in common use. City officials alternately tolerated and tried to eradicate the shack town. Even during the worst of the Depression, most Hooverville residents continued to seek employment, often taking backbreaking seasonal jobs like picking and packing field crops. 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