Hooverville

Last updated
A Hooverville in Seattle, 1933. Hooverville on the Seattle tideflats, 1933 (50495168952).jpg
A Hooverville in Seattle, 1933.

Hoovervilles were shanty towns built during the Great Depression by the homeless in the United States. 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. The term was coined by Charles Michelson. [1] There were hundreds of Hoovervilles across the country during the 1930s. [2]

Contents

Homelessness was present before the Great Depression, and was a common sight before 1929. Most large cities built municipal lodging houses for the homeless, but the Depression exponentially [3] increased demand. The homeless clustered in shanty towns close to free soup kitchens. These settlements were often trespassing on private lands, but they were frequently tolerated or ignored out of necessity. FDR's New Deal enacted special relief programs aimed at the homeless under the Federal Transient Service (FTS) which operated from 1933 to 1939, this did not though mitigate the prevalence of Hoovervilles.

Paterson, New Jersey 1937. Bachelor shacks in outskirts of Paterson, on "Molly Jan Brook." Paterson, New Jersey - Textiles. Bachelor shacks in outskirts of Paterson, on "Molly Jan Brook." About 20 men live... - NARA - 518623.jpg
Paterson, New Jersey 1937. Bachelor shacks in outskirts of Paterson, on "Molly Jan Brook."

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. Most people, however, resorted to building their residences out of wood from crates, cardboard, scraps of metal, or whatever materials were available to them. They usually had a small stove, bedding and a couple of simple cooking implements. [4] Men, women and children alike lived in Hoovervilles. [5] Most of these unemployed residents of the Hoovervilles relied on public charities or begged for food from those who had housing during this era.

Democrats coined other similar terms that were jabs at Herbert Hoover: [6] "Hoover blankets" were old newspapers used as blanketing, a "Hoover flag" was an empty pocket turned inside out, "Hoover leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe when the sole wore through, and a "Hoover wagon" was an automobile with horses hitched to it (often with the engine removed). [7]

After 1940, the economy recovered, unemployment fell, and shanty housing eradication programs destroyed all the Hoovervilles. [8]

Population of Hoovervilles

Hooverville in Alabama during the Great Depression. An American flag flies over one of the shanties. Hooverville.jpg.webp
Hooverville in Alabama during the Great Depression. An American flag flies over one of the shanties.

While some Hoovervilles created a sort of government, most were unorganized collections of shanty houses. This lack of organization has made it difficult to identify the populations within Hoovervilles. Some claim to have been made up of men, women, and children, while others claim to only have had men. [9]

One exceptional Hooverville of Seattle, Washington held a structured government and collected extensive documentation. This Hooverville had its very own unofficial “mayor,” Jesse Jackson. The city of Seattle tolerated the unemployed living situation and imposed loose building and sanitation rules. A request from the city was that women and children would not be allowed to live in the shantytown. This was supervised by “Mayor” Jackson, who also led the Vigilance Committee. [2] Donald Francis Roy, a citizen of Seattle's Hooverville, took detailed recordings of the population during his time there. In his journal, he states that of the 639 residents of the town, only 7 of them were women. [2]

Hooverville on Seattle waterfront, 1933 Hooverville on Seattle waterfront, 1933 (51206921728).jpg
Hooverville on Seattle waterfront, 1933

However, not every Hooverville fits this description. Photos from shantytowns across the country show images of families, including women and children, dwelling in their makeshift home. [10]

Regardless of the gender of the residents, Hoovervilles served as a common ground for many different nationalities and ethnicities. Economic disparity in the United States during the 1930s was not limited to American born individuals. Migrant workers and immigrants greatly suffered from the lack of work and made up a large portion of the Hoovervilles across the country. [2]

Roy's 1934 census provides a breakdown of the population by ethnicity and nationality. His records show populations of Japanese, Mexican, Filipino, Native American, Costa Rican, Chilean, and Black men. Nearly 29 percent of the population was non-white. [2] Among the white population, nationalities included English, Irish, Polish, Spanish, Italian, and Russian.

Roy documents a unique spirit of tolerance and amiability between ethnic groups. He wrote that the racial barriers constructed in ‘normal’ society did not stand within the Hooverville. Black and white men would share homes out of convenience and, likewise, exemplify camaraderie and friendship. Roy noted that only the Filipinos and Mexican men were segregated, generally due to language rather than racial discrimination.

Notable Hoovervilles

Bonus Army marchers confront the police. Bonus marchers 05510 2004 001 a.gif
Bonus Army marchers confront the police.

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. [18] Movies such as My Man Godfrey (1936) and Sullivan's Travels (1941) sometimes sentimentalized Hooverville life. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Hoover</span> President of the United States from 1929 to 1933

Herbert Clark Hoover was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. He was a member of the Republican Party, and held office during the onset of the Great Depression. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and was the director of the U.S. Food Administration, followed by post-war relief of Europe. In the 1920s, he served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

<i>My Man Godfrey</i> 1936 American comedy-drama film directed by Gregory La Cava

My Man Godfrey is a 1936 American screwball comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava and starring William Powell and Carole Lombard, who had been briefly married years before appearing together in the film. The screenplay for My Man Godfrey was written by Morrie Ryskind and Eric S. Hatch, with uncredited contributions by La Cava, based on Hatch's 1935 novel, 1101 Park Avenue. The story concerns a socialite who hires a derelict to be her family's butler, and then falls in love with him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tacoma, Washington</span> City in Washington, United States

Tacoma is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, 32 miles (51 km) southwest of Seattle, 36 miles (58 km) southwest of Bellevue, 31 miles (50 km) northeast of the state capital, Olympia, 58 miles (93 km) northwest of Mount Rainier National Park, and 80 miles (130 km) east of Olympic National Park. The city's population was 219,346 at the time of the 2020 census. Tacoma is the second-largest city in the Puget Sound area and the third-most populous in the state. Tacoma also serves as the center of business activity for the South Sound region, which has a population of about 1 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinatown–International District, Seattle</span> Historic district in Washington, United States

The Chinatown–International District of Seattle, Washington is the center of the city's Asian American community. Within the district are the three neighborhoods known as Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once included Manilatown.

History of Seattle, Washington 1900–1940: Seattle experienced rapid growth and transformation in the early 20th century, establishing itself as a leader in the Pacific Northwest. The Klondike Gold Rush led to massive immigration, diversifying the city's ethnic mix with arrivals of Japanese, Filipinos, Europeans, and European-Americans. The city expanded geographically through annexations and ambitious regrade projects, most notably the Denny Regrade which leveled more than 120 feet of Denny Hill. Major infrastructure projects shaped the city, including the construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal and the development of an extensive park system designed by the Olmsted Brothers. The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909 celebrated the city's rise, while the completion of Smith Tower in 1914 gave Seattle the tallest building west of the Mississippi River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonus Army</span> 1930s US veterans protest movement

The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – 17,000 veterans of U.S. involvement in World War I, their families, and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C., in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service bonus certificates. Organizers called the demonstrators the Bonus Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.), to echo the name of World War I's American Expeditionary Forces, while the media referred to them as the "Bonus Army" or "Bonus Marchers". The demonstrators were led by Walter W. Waters, a former sergeant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tent city</span> Temporary housing facility

A tent city is a temporary housing facility made using tents or other temporary structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shanty town</span> Improvised human settlement

A shanty town, squatter area or squatter settlement is a settlement of improvised buildings known as shanties or shacks, typically made of materials such as mud and wood. A typical shanty town is squatted and in the beginning lacks adequate infrastructure, including proper sanitation, safe water supply, electricity and street drainage. Over time, shanty towns can develop their infrastructure and even change into middle class neighbourhoods. They can be small informal settlements or they can house millions of people.

The Economy Act of 1933, officially titled the Act of March 20, 1933 (ch. 3, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law  73–2, 48 Stat. 8, enacted March 20, 1933, is an Act of Congress that cut the salaries of federal workers and reduced benefit payments to veterans, moves intended to reduce the federal deficit in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pea-pickers</span>

A pea-picker is a derogatory reference to poor, migrant workers during the Great Depression. These people were unskilled, poorly educated workers, employable only in menial jobs, such as harvesting crops and, as such, received poor wages for working long hours under dreadful conditions. Some of these people were photographed by Dorothea Lange.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Single-room occupancy</span> Type of low-cost housing

Single-room occupancy (SRO) is a type of low-cost housing typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes, or single adults who like a minimalist lifestyle, who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from 7 to 13 square metres. In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Depression in the United States</span> Period in American history, 1929–1939

In the United States, the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth as well as for personal advancement. Altogether, there was a general loss of confidence in the economic future.

Throughout the industrial world, cities were devastated during the Great Depression, beginning in 1929 and lasting through most of the 1930s. Worst hit were port cities and cities that depended on heavy industry, such as the steel and automotive industries. Service-oriented cities were hurt less severely. Political centers such as Canada, Texas, Washington, London and Berlin flourished during the Great Depression, as the expanded role of government added many new jobs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seattle</span> Largest city in Washington, United States

Seattle is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2023 population of 755,078 it is the most populous city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of North America, and the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The Seattle metropolitan area's population is 4.02 million, making it the 15th-largest in the United States. Its growth rate of 21.1% between 2010 and 2020 made it one of the country's fastest-growing large cities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presidency of Herbert Hoover</span> U.S. presidential administration from 1929 to 1933

Herbert Hoover's tenure as the 31st president of the United States began on his inauguration on March 4, 1929, and ended on March 4, 1933. Hoover, a Republican, took office after a landslide victory in the 1928 presidential election over Democrat Al Smith of New York. His presidency ended following his landslide defeat in the 1932 presidential election by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, after one term in office.

The Umoja Village shantytown was founded on October 23, 2006, in the Liberty City section of Miami, Florida, in response to gentrification and a lack of low-income housing in Miami. The name Umoja is Swahili for "unity", hence "Unity Village".

In the United States, squatting occurs when a person enters land that does not belong to them without lawful permission and proceeds to act in the manner of an owner. Historically, squatting occurred during the settlement of the Midwest when colonial European settlers established land rights and during the California Gold Rush. There was squatting during the Great Depression in Hoovervilles and also during World War II. Shanty towns returned to the US after the Great Recession (2007–2009) and in the 2010s, there were increasing numbers of people occupying foreclosed homes using fraudulent documents. In some cases, a squatter may be able to obtain ownership of property through adverse possession.

Alternative housing is a category of domicile structures that are built or designed outside of the mainstream norm e.g., town homes, single family homes and apartment complexes. In modern days, alternative housing commonly takes the form of tiny houses, dome homes, pyramid-shaped houses, earth sheltered homes, residential tree houses, abandoned factories and hospitals and even up-cycled vans or buses. The motivation to create alternative homes can arise from destitution or lack of resources to buy or rent a typical home and therefore include improvised shacks in shantytowns, buses, cars and tent-like structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1932 United States presidential election in Nebraska</span>

The 1932 United States presidential election in Nebraska took place on November 8, 1932, as part of the 1932 United States presidential election. Voters chose seven representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Squatting in Chile</span> Occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner

Squatting in Chile is the occupation of unused land or derelict buildings without the permission of the owner. From the 1960s onwards, informal settlements known as callampas were permitted although there were also evictions such as the massacre of Puerto Montt in 1969. In the 1970s, the government of Salvador Allende encouraged occupations, then following the coup d'état, the military junta repressed squatting. Callampas then became known as campamentos.

References

  1. Kaltenborn, Hans (1956). It Seems Like, Yesterday. p. 88.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Hoovervilles and Homelessness". washington.edu.
  3. Abelson, Elaine S. (2003). ""Women Who Have No Men to Work for Them": Gender and Homelessness in the Great Depression, 1930-1934". Feminist Studies. 29 (1): 105–127. ISSN   0046-3663.
  4. Carswell, Andrew T. (2012). "Hooverville". The Encyclopedia of Housing (Second ed.). SAGE. p. 302. ISBN   9781412989572.
  5. McElvaine, Robert S. (2000). The Depression and New Deal: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press.
  6. Blum, John Morton (1993). The National Experience: A History of the United States Since 1865 . p. 678.
  7. Nathan, George Jean; Mencken, Henry Louis (1935). The American Mercury vol. 34 (1935 ed.).
  8. Danver, Steven L. (2010). Revolts, protests, riots, demonstrations, and rebellions in American History. p. 839. ISBN   978-1598842210.
  9. "Hoovervilles". HISTORY. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
  10. "Life in Hooverville- Photos of inside the shanty towns of the Great Depression". The Vintage News. 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2022-04-07.
  11. Tugwell, Rexford G. (September 1972). "Roosevelt and the Bonus Marchers of 1932". Political Science Quarterly . 78 (3): 363–376. doi:10.2307/2149206. JSTOR   2149206.
  12. Dickson, Paul; Allen, Thomas B. (February 2003). "Marching on History". Smithsonian . Retrieved April 12, 2018 via smithsonianmag.com.
  13. Gray, Christopher (29 August 1993). "Streetscapes: Central Park's 'Hooverville'; Life Along 'Depression Street'". The New York Times .
  14. Vitello, Paul (4 April 2007). "Why Listen to the Substitute? At 81, He does Tell History Firsthand". The New York Times.
  15. "Map of Hoovervilles". washington.edu.
  16. "Hoovervilles in Seattle". Archives Document Library for Washington State History. Archived from the original on June 25, 2007. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  17. Towey, Martin G. (1980). "Hooverville: St. Louis Had the Largest". Gateway Heritage. 1 (2): 2–11.
  18. Silver, Nathan (2000). Lost New York. p. 258. ISBN   0618054758.
  19. Caldwell, Mark (2005). New York Night: The Mystique and Its History. p. 255. ISBN   0743274784.
  20. "Hoovervilles and Homelessness". depts.washington.edu. Retrieved 2018-04-17.
  21. Giovacchini, Saverio (2001). Hollywood modernism: film and politics in the age of the New Deal. p. 135. ISBN   1566398630.
  22. Michener Smith, Cecil; Litton, Glenn (1981). Musical comedy in America. p. 314. ISBN   0878305645.
  23. "Home Improvement". Stanfordalumni.org. Retrieved 2013-11-20.
  24. "Housing – Hooverville". Phdcomics.com. Retrieved 2013-11-20.
  25. Caldwell, Catherine (2002). Bud, Not Buddy: Study Guide and Student Workbook. p. 61. ISBN   1609336607.
  26. Starr, Kevin (1997). Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California. p.  261. ISBN   0195118022.