Hoovervilles

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Recommended: American history of the Great Depression

Hoovervilles
Where do you go when you have no home to go to? During the great depression, thousands of Americans were asking themselves this question. America’s economy was at an all time low, most people were laid off, and the few who weren’t had a major decrease in their salary. A large portion of America’s population was unable to afford their houses anymore. Lots of people went to live with family, but not everyone had a family who was able to take care of them. So where do these people go? The answer is hoovervilles, hoovervilles are groups of random makeshift shacks and any other things people were able to throw together for shelter. Most hoovervilles were in large cities because there were more job opportunities. Since there were so many people living in these camps, it was harder to control them. There was so much crime going on in hoovervilles that officials couldn’t stop it, and sometimes even made it worse. Hoovervilles were not very desired places to live.
Hoovervilles were a huge burden on larger cities such as; New York City, Seattle, and Chicago. Seattle's main Hooverville was one of the largest, longest-lasting, and best documented in the nation. It stood for ten years, from 1931 to 1941. (Hoovervilles and… np.pag.) It was a little over 9 acres, and contained about 1,200 homeless Americans who came to Seattle looking for jobs. They had even established their own unofficial government, this included an unofficial mayor. The hooverville in Seattle was a lot more civilized than New York Cities main hooverville, located in Central Park. People died on a daily basis in New York’s hooverville. They were either killed by sickness, hunger, accidents, or murder. The small amount of resources that the federal government ...

... middle of paper ...

... 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.

Works Cited

Gregory, James. “Hoovervilles and Homelessness” Depts.Washington.edu. 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2013 http://depts.washington.edu/depress/hooverville.shtml

“Hoovervilles.” 2013. The History Channel website. Nov 15 2013, 2:04 http://www.history.com/topics/hoovervilles.

“Hoovervilles.” u-s-history.com. 21 Nov. 2013. Web. 21 Nov. 2013 http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1642.html

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