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]
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. The New Deal enacted special relief programs aimed at the homeless under the Federal Transient Service (FTS), which operated from 1933 to 1939.
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]
^Kaltenborn, Hans (1956). It Seems Like, Yesterday. p. 88.
^"Hoovervilles and Homelessness". washington.edu.
^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.
^Carswell, Andrew T. (2012). "Hooverville". The Encyclopedia of Housing (Second ed.). SAGE. p. 302. ISBN 9781412989572.
^McElvaine, Robert S. (2000). The Depression and New Deal: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford University Press.
^Blum, John Morton (1993). The National Experience: A History of the United States Since 1865. p. 678.
^Nathan, George Jean; Mencken, Henry Louis (1935). The American Mercury vol. 34 (1935 ed.).
^Danver, Steven L. (2010). Revolts, protests, riots, demonstrations, and rebellions in American History. p. 839. ISBN 978-1598842210.
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