There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation, he wrote of the squalled camp. To find out more, see our, Download the Hooverville Facts & Worksheets, Hooverville Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com, Resources created by teaching professionals. KidsKonnect is a growing library of premium quality educational materials, printable worksheets and teaching resources for use in the classroom. In turn, a new lexicon came into being -- words like "Hoovervilles," "Hoover blankets" and "Hoover hogs." Each Hooverville was unique. Considered by many to be one of the most successful of Roosevelts New Deal programs, the CCC planted more than three read more, In the early 20th century, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation devised plans for a massive dam on the Arizona-Nevada border to tame the Colorado River and provide water and hydroelectric power for the developing Southwest. In Seattle, Washington, stood one of the country's largest, longest-lasting, and best-documented Hoovervilles, standing for ten years between 1931 and 1941.Though several were located about the city, this Hooverville was on the tidal flats adjacent to the Port of Seattle. months[2] = "Learning made easy with the various learning techniques and proven teaching methods used by the Siteseen network. 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. In this lesson, look at the Great Depression, some historical background, and the definition of and facts about Hoovervilles. 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. Library of Congress. 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These are ready-to-use Hooverville worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Hooverville, which was a small town founded by homeless people in the United States during the Great Depression. Courtesy Tacoma Public Library. Construction within the strict timeframe proved an immense read more, The Dust Bowl was the name given to the drought-stricken southern plains region of the United States, which suffered severe dust storms during a drought in the 1930s. This Hooverville had its very own unofficial mayor, Jesse Jackson. He wasn't a particularly warm, charismatic individual; he had won the presidency on the strength of his record and his character, but very few people would have described him as sympathetic (though by all accounts, he agonized over the suffering of the Great Depression). As the Depression worsened and millions of families lost their jobs and depleted their savings, they also lost their homes. People experiencing homelessness made them from scraps of wood, tin, tar, and cardboard, and named . Homeless people roamed the country looking for food and work. Click here to see more photographs of Hoovervilles and homeless encampments in Seattle and Tacoma. 01 of 10 First Quaker President Hoover was the son of a blacksmith, Jesse Clark Hoover, and a Quaker minister, Huldah Minthorn Hoover. Hoover's other problem was his own personality. 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. I would definitely recommend Study.com to my colleagues. [9], Regardless of the gender of the residents, Hoovervilles served as a common ground for many different nationalities and ethnicities. Seattle was also the location of seven other shantytowns. Beyond the waters lie two rugged mountain ranges, the Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east. MacArthurs troops set fire to the Hooverville and drove the group from the city with bayonets and tear gas. "; When most of the veterans refused to leave their shacks, Hoover ordered his Chief of Staff Gen. Douglas MacArthur to drive them out. As the Great Depression deepened people protested and launched hunger marches. However, that didn't last long. Probably the most famous Hooverville was the one founded on Anacostia Flats, just outside Washington, D.C., in 1932. In April, residents of the main Hooverville were given notice to leave by May 1. However, some cities banned them if they trespassed on parks or privately owned land. Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images. Report of Shack Elimination Committee (April 14, 1941) Americas longest lasting Hooverville in Seattle, Washington, stood for ten years, from 1931 to 1941. At that time, President Herbert Hoover increasingly became, in the eyes of many Americans, a grim and inept leader. I highly recommend you use this site! Definition and Summary of the Shantytowns and HoovervillesSummary and definition: The Shanty Towns, known as Hoovervilles, sprang up across the nation during the Great Depression (1929 - 1941). Hooverville residents had nowhere else to go, and public sympathy, for the most part, was with them. A large number of small houses were constructed from scrap materials. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was an ambitious employment and infrastructure program created by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, during the bleakest days of the Great Depression. This was supervised by Mayor Jackson, who also led the Vigilance Committee. The smaller camps tended to come and go, while the larger Hoovervilles proved far more permanent. read more, The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a work relief program that gave millions of young men employment on environmental projects during the Great Depression. Signed in June 1930, the decidedly protectionist law placed extremely high tariffs on imported foreign goods. The highly unpopular Hoover was defeated in the 1932 presidential election by Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal recovery programs eventually helped lift the United States out of the Depression. The term 'Hooverville' probably originated with Charles Michelson, who was a newspaper reporter and, in 1930, the publicity director for the Democratic National Party. 361 lessons. We pride ourselves on being a safe website for both teachers and students. The easiest way to travel across the country was by train and Shantytowns, nicknamed 'Hobo Jungles' sprang up by most city railroad stations. As such, he was highly reluctant to shift the federal government into high gear to try and solve an economic crisis. Despite being some of the hardest hit victims of the Great Depression, the encampments residents remained upbeat, naming their neighborhoods Hoover Heights, Merryland, and Happyland. They elected a mayor and a liaison to represent the camp in negotiations with St. Louis authorities. 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. A "Hooverville" is the popular name for slum towns built by people without homes during the Great Depression. A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. months[3] = "Check out the interesting and diverse websites produced and created by the international publisher in the Siteseen network. [3] Men, women and children alike lived in Hoovervilles. But residents rebuilt and the site remained occupied all the way through World War II. [6], After 1940, the economy recovered, unemployment fell, and shanty housing eradication programs destroyed all the Hoovervilles. Its unofficial mayor was Jesse Jackson, who led the city in tolerating the homeless and imposed lax building and sanitation regulations. Businesses made huge profits, but average workers wages did not rise at the same rate. Democratic National Committee publicity director and longtime newspaper reporter Charles Michelson is credited with coining the term, which first appeared in print in 1930. Whenever possible, Hoovervilles were built near rivers for the convenience of a water source. When most of the veterans refused to leave their shacks, Hoover sent in U.S. Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur to evict the Bonus Army. The largest Hooverville, located in St. Louis, Missouri, was home to as many as 8,000 homeless people from 1930 to 1936. Others were simply holes dug in the ground covered with pieces of tin. The final decision to eliminate Hooverville was presented in a report from the Housing Authority. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you Roy noted that the only Filipinos and Mexican men were segregated, generally due to language rather than racial discrimination. Click the image to see a larger version of the map and here to read excerpts from Roy's sociological survey.By 1934 nearly 500 self-built one-room domiciles were "scattered over the terrain in insane disorder," according to Donald Roy, a sociology graduate student who studied the community. 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. 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. The city of Seattle tolerated the unemployed living situation and imposed loose building and sanitation rules. 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. Politicians continued drinking as everyday people were slapped with charges. Whenever possible, Hoovervilles were built near creeks, streams, and rivers to provide a source of water. He described the population as fluid in 1938, owing to men selling their homes to newcomers and moving on. Hoovervilles: Some 200,000 migrant farmers relocated to California. Most of them did not find work. As elsewhere in the country, Washington State's Communist Party helped to organize the unemployed into active political and social formations. Even before the Great Depression, there were homeless people, but most large cities were able to build municipal lodging houses for the homeless. 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. Check out the Siteseen network of educational websites. [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. Many features of life during the Great Depression were given bitter connotations with Hoover's name. This began with a heated debate over the status and rights of Hooverville residents, which became more visible in petitions submitted throughout the late 1930s. These communities of shacks or shanties were called Hoovervilles, after President Hoover, who refused to help the growing number of homeless. During the fall and winter of 1931 and 1932, unemployed workers established Seattle's "Hooverville," a shantytown named in sarcastic honor of U.S. President Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), on whose beat the Great Depression began. This Hooverville thrived because it was funded by private donations. Built with all over the world Copyright 19992023This site uses cookies to improve your experience. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.. Get unlimited access to over 84,000 lessons. WATCH VIDEO: How Artists Helped End the Great Depression. Ultimately, they were a bitterly ironic symbol of the suffering inherent in the worst economic crisis in U.S. History. Seattle's developed into a self-sufficient and organized town-within-a-town. 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. A "Hoover flag" was an empty pocket turned inside out and "Hoover leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe when the sole wore through. The Hoovervilles varied in size from just a few shacks clustered together to communities of over 1000 rickety shacks covering acres of unused or public lands. The Seattle City Council decided to close Hooverville in May 1941, despite the increased reliance on it for shelter. "Hooverville" was a deliberately politicized label, emphasizing that President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Party were to be held responsible for the economic crisis and its miseries. The Story of the Great Depression in Photos, How the Great Depression Altered US Foreign Policy, Reconstruction Finance Corporation: Definition and Legacy, Biography of Louis Armstrong, Expert Trumpeter and Entertainer, What Is Patriotism? Seattle's Hooverville had lasted a full decade.[4]. [1] There were hundreds of Hoovervilles across the country during the 1930s.[2]. The state described as 'absolute poverty' has been described as "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information". They usually had a small stove, bedding and a couple of simple cooking implements. Click the Edit button above to get started. Inhabitants living in the primitive conditions of the shantytowns were subject to many health problems. Along with Hoovervilles, other derogatory terms aimed at President Hoovers continued refusal to initiate welfare programs became common in both the homeless camps and newspapers. Police officers doused the little structures with kerosene and lit them as spectators watched. 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! 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. Trade policies made the Great Depression worse. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. Twelve million Americans, about 25% of the normal labor force, were out of work and many suffered poverty, deprivation and homelessness. 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?' The first nine years of the so-called Roaring Twenties had been a decade of prosperity and optimism in the United States. Herbert Hoover was president during the start of the Great Depression. Many Hoovervilles were built along rivers, proving drinking water and allowing some residents to grow vegetables. Among the hundreds of Hoovervilles across the U.S. during the 1930s were those in: Hoovervilles have often featured in popular culture, and still appear in editorial cartoons. He counted 639 residents in March of that year, all but seven of them men. While private and corporate philanthropy provided some assistance during the early 1930s, poverty continued to increase rapidly. The longest lasting Hooverville, located in Seattle, Washington, stood as a semi-autonomous community from 1931 to 1941. The new mayor allowed the towns Hooverville to thrive and grow, even granting it some official tolerance. 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