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Herbert Hoover's role in the Great Depression
President hoover depression
Herbert Hoover's role in the Great Depression
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Hoovervilles were small towns that were built by homeless people during the Great Depression. They were built with any scrap material that they could find. Hooverville houses were very small and lacked a lot. An entire family would live in one small hut or tent. Most Hoovervilles were next to soup kitchens to get food.
Hoovervilles were started when a lot of people lost money due to the stock market crash of 1929 and couldn't pay for rent or mortgage, so they lost their homes. Once they were homeless, they got together and created many Hoovervilles. Hoovervilles sprang up all over the country. Hoovervilles were named to make fun of the Republican president who was then in leadership, Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover was widely blamed for the stock market crash, which caused all of these people homeless. They also were upset that the government didn’t help them.
Hoovervilles were
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built with scrap wood, metal or anything they could find. The floors were made out of mud. Most Hoovervilles were next to rivers, ponds, or lakes because then they could get water from the natural resources. Considering, the natural resources were dirty, diseases spreading like wildfire through the towns. Hoovervilles were built in public areas that were just taken by the homeless people. Hoovervilles could be over populated, or house few people, but either way the residents were very poor. A Hooverville was not warm in the winter, and often did not hold rain. The shacks were poorly built and didn't have bathrooms. One of the largest Hooverville was in Seattle, Washington, USA.
The Seattle Hooverville was a home to approximately 1,200 people. The Hooverville was so big, they even elected a “mayor” to settle disputes. Their “mayor,” was Jesse Jackson, he took notes of what happened during the Great Depression. Another big Hooverville was in St. Louis, Missouri. The St. Louis Hooverville was a home for about 5,000 people. They were next to the Welcome Inn, the Welcome Inn gave them the food they needed. The Welcome Inn gave food to about 4,000 people a day. The big Hooverville had a “mayor” Gus W. Smith, he was a laborer. The 300 children went to public schools.
To sum it up Hoovervilles were small towns which were built by homeless people during the Great Depression. The largest Hooverville was in Seattle, Washington which was a house to 1,200 people. Hoovervilles were named to make fun of the president then in office Herbert Hoover. Hoovervilles were made with scrap wood or any other material they could find. Hoovervilles were up for 10 years, and then burned down after the Great
Depression.
The unpopularity of Hoover was shown in many different ways such as in source b where Roosevelt's biographer Alan Hatch write " Hoover showed little patience with those out of work" this is referring to the attitude of Hoover which were the republican belief of "rugged individualism" Hoovers attempts to deal with the depression were not much better he set up places where the homeless could eat and he gave them soup which was named the Hoover soup he also set up
St. Louis, Missouri had one of the largest and long lasting Hoovervilles (Source 2). There were also many in Washington, hundreds throughout the country (Source 2). The main Hooverville in Seattle was one of the largest, long-lasting and best documented in America (Source 2). In Seattle many shacks showed up in many places (Source 2). In late 1935, the city Health Department estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 people were living in shack towns (Source 2). The city tolerated Hoovervilles before World War II (Source 2). In April, residents of the main shack towns were given notice to leave by May 1 (Source 2). Police officers drenches the little shacks with kerosene and lit them as people watched (Source 2). Tacoma hosted a large Hooverville near the city garbage dump. Residents called it “Hollywood-on-the-Tideflats” (Source 2). By the end of a decade it covered a six block area (Source 2). In May 1942, after Seattle destroyed its Hoovervilles, the Tacoma Fire Dept. burned fifty “Hollywood” shacks (Source 2). But the residents rebuilt and it remained intact through World War II (Source 2). Hoovervilles were common all over the United States especially in
Since the majority of the population went bankrupt, they were evicted from their homes due to no money able to pay bills. People came home from work to find their houses locked and their belongings outside, they were forced to live on the streets and live in tent camps. Because of President Hoover's wide unpopularity, people began calling homeless tent camps “Hoovervilles” and an empty pocket inside a “Hoover Flag” (Concise Encyclopedia).... ... middle of paper ...
Because if the stock market crashing in 1929, many people sold their stocks and rushed to the banks to retrieve their money. Because of the faulty banking system, many banks failed. This led to the many people who have very little left. A significant thing is the unemployment and the homelessness of the people. In 1929, 3% of the people have unemployment while during the Great Depression, it was around 25% of the people. The farmers of Oklahoma and Kansas was struck the hardest when The Dust Bowl started. The huge dust storms changed the way people lived their lives more than the rest of the US. THe rural farmers in those states are forced to move inward toward the urban areas to escape the harsh conditions of the dust
Because of the plague known as the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover is often seen as one of the worst presidents in American history. He enacted policies such as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff that flushed America deeper into the depression. Hoover didn't understand that to solve a crisis such as a depression, he needed to interact directly with the people by using programs such as social security and welfare. Instead, Hoover had the idea that if he were to let the depression run its course, it would eventually end. There are three things that can be used to define Hoover's presidency during the depression, his actions, his mentality toward fixing things, and the fact that he helped pave the way for the “New Deal”
Hoover is also vilified repeatedly for his inaction with the Depression. His personal policy and his party’s policy were designed to let the country find its own way, for if it became dependent on government aide, it would be a weaker nation that if it found it’s own way. This was a flawed assumption on their behalf though, because even in the 1920’s, there was a movement from many of the nation’s younger voters advocating change.
Although the nation listened with little hope, the genuineness behind the words Roosevelt spoke opened the ears of many. While many ridiculed Hoover and found ways to belittle his status with phrases such as “Hoovervilles” to describe shanty towns or “Hoover Blankets” to describe the newspapers individuals used as warmth, he practiced denial. While the people of the nation suffered, his approach to keeping the facade that the economy “was on its way” was to preserve and uphold formal attire and protocol in the White House.... ... middle of paper ...
Life in the Hoovervilles varied. Some Hoovervilles were big and some were small, they were most commonly placed in big cities like New York or Washington D.C. More often than not Hoovervilles were operated in an unorderly
A brief biography, as an introduction to the man will aid us in the understanding of who he was, and through this we may gain incite into the reasons for why he did the things he did. Hoover was born New Years Day 1895 in Washington D.C. the youngest of three children. He had an older brother and sister that lived and an older sister that died as a baby. His mother, Annie Hoover had the greatest influence on him as a child. She was strong willed and militaristic in her approach to raising her children and running a family. She instilled in him a strong sense of right and wrong, and taught him the work ethic for which he would live by. Hoover was a winner, during his school years and beyond. As a boy Hoover was afflicted with a speech impediment. He was so determined to overcome this handicap that he read aloud for hours a day until he no longer stuttered. Hoover was short and slight in stature but he was athletic and quite agile.
Farming was the major growing production in the United States in the 1930's. Panhandle farming attached many people because it attracted many people searching for work. The best crop that was prospering around the country was wheat. The world needed it and the United States could supply it easily because of rich mineral soil. In the beginning of the 1930's it was dry but most farmers made a wheat crop. In 1931 everyone started farming wheat. The wheat crop forced the price down from sixty-eight cents/ bushels in July 1930 to twenty-five cents/ bushels July 1931. Many farmers went broke and others abandoned their fields. As the storms approached the farmers were getting ready. Farmers increased their milking cowherds. The cream from the cows was sold to make milk and the skim milk was fed to the chickens and pigs. When normal feed crops failed, thistles were harvested, and when thistles failed, hardy souls dug up soap weed, which was chopped in a feed mill or by hand and fed to the stock. This was a backbreaking, disheartening chore, which would have broken weaker people. But to the credit of the residents of the Dust Bowl, they shouldered their task and carried on. The people of the region made it because they knew how to take the everyday practical things, which had been used for years and adapt them to meet the crisis.
... home for thousands of American during the 1930’s, even though hoovervilles weren’t the most ideal places to live. Hoovervilles were full of sickness, crime, and death. A large portion of Americans would say that hoovervilles were bad things because of all the crime and death that happened there, but what they don’t realize is that hoovervilles were a huge help to a large number of the victims of America's economic downfall that we call the great depression.
His failure is what earned the name of Hoovervilles to the Shantytowns, and this term spread like a wildfire through the United States. An assortment of the name is even still used as a trend today to describe some opinions of Presidents such as Bushville or Obamaville. People during the 1930s even created new derogatory terms for many of the common homeless man’s or even a poor man's possessions such as the “Hoover Blanket”, which was an used newspaper used for warmth and blanketing, or “Hoover leather” which was cardboard used to line a shoe sole when it was destroyed, and a "Hoover wagon" which was an automobile with horses tied to it because the owner could not afford fuel , or even the big “Hoover flag”, which was an empty pocket turned inside out . People during these times created very degrading names, to not only demean President Hoover but to the government as a whole in which many people today still believe are at
During The Great Depression, people had to find ways to save money on even the bare necessities. One example of this was the widespread use of vacant lots, and land provided bythe cities to grow food. Americans now had to live in the manner of their ancestors, making their own clothing, growing their own food, and agai...
Washington D.C: Our Nation’s Capital Although the entire world is familiar with the City of Washington as the United State’s capital, the city was nonexistent when we became a nation in 1789. Thanks to the brilliant design of the French born engineer, Pierre Charles L’Enfant and his assistants Benjamin Banneker and Andrew Ellicot, our capital city that was once a swamp now is beautiful with many different parks, gardens trees, tall buildings and wide avenues. Washington, District of Columbia named after Christopher Columbus, has played a unique role in the wars of our nation and has been dramatically affected by their awesome events.
All of the things mentioned above only got worse and this would last until 1941, when the U.S entered World War II. Hoover, “thought the crash was part of a passing recession”, but after the crash happened, he worked very hard trying to fix the economy. He founded government agencies, encouraged labor harmony, supported local aid for public works, fostered cooperation between government and business in order to stabilize prices, and struggled to balance the budget. His work focused on indirect relief from individual states and the private sector, with emphasis on “supporting each state effectively” with volunteerism and “appealing for funds” from outside the government, but as the Depression became worse, calls grew for increased federal intervention and spending. But Hoover refused to involve the federal government in forcing fixed prices, controlling businesses, or manipulating the value of the currency, all of which he felt were steps towards socialism. He was inclined to give indirect aid to banks or local public works projects, but he refused to use federal money for direct aid to citizens, believing the dole would weaken public morale. Instead, he focused on volunteerism to raise