The Hill-Burton Act

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We’ve all the heard saying desperate times call for desperate measures. During this time the American people were in need of a miracle. The world suffered a severe economic depression, known as the Great Depression. The Great Depression (1929-1939) preceded a decade before World War II (1939-1945). Although the timing varied for cities across the United States, it was considered the longest, most widespread and deepest depression of the 20th Century. The Great Depression started with the collapsing of the U.S. stock market prices. The stock markets crashed on 10/29/1929, marking it the day known as “Black Tuesday.”
The American people needed help more than ever. Due to the Great Depression and war, many hospitals became obsolete and over 40% of the nation’s countries didn't have any hospitals. Luckily, a new law passed by Congress would solve that problem. Following the Great Depression and war, the Hospital Survey and Construction Act, also known as the Hill-Burton Act was passed in 1946. The Hill-Burton Act was to provide grants and loan to facilities for the construction of nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, hospitals and health centers (Health & Human Services, 2000). Facilities receiving these funds had three rules to follow: they weren’t allowed to discriminate based on race, color, national origin, or creed, though some ‘separate but equal’ facilities were allowed, provide a ‘reasonable volume’ of free care each year for those residents in the facility’s area who needed care but could not afford to pay and states and localities were also required to prove the economic viability of the facility in question (Newman, 2004).
The Hill-Burton Act wasn’t the only answer for the economic depression and war. During the time of...

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Mitchell, R., & Jr, Jones, W. (1994). Public policy and the black hospital from slavery to segregation to integration. The African American Experience, Retrieved from http://goo.gl/cRmzxe
Newman, Roger K. "Hill-Burton Act (1946)." Major Acts of Congress. 2004. Retrieved November 16, 2013 from Encyclopedia.com: http://goo.gl/AyF8FI
The Library of Congress. (n.d.). President franklin delano roosevelt and the new deal 1933-1945. Retrieved from http://goo.gl/yqGMK1
Thomas, Karen K. “The Hill-Burton Act and Civil Rights: Expanding Hospital Care for Black Southerners, 1939-1960.” Journal of Southern History 72 (November 2006): 823-70
U.S. Embassy. (2008, April). The great depression and the new deal. Retrieved from http://usa.usembassy.de/history-depression.htm
Wikipedia. (2013, Apr 13). Hill-burton act. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_Burton_Act

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