What Was A Hoover Blanket

A "Hooverville" was a shanty town built during the Great Depression past the homeless in the United States. They were named later 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 state during the 1930s.^[2]

Homelessness was present earlier the Great Low, and was a mutual sight earlier 1929. Most large cities congenital municipal lodging houses for the homeless, but the Depression exponentially increased need. The homeless amassed in shanty towns close to costless soup kitchens. These settlements were frequently trespassing on private lands, just 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.

Some of the men who were forced to live in these conditions possessed construction skills, and were able to build their houses out of rock. About people, nonetheless, 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.^[3] Men, women and children alike lived in Hoovervilles.^[4] 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 many terms based on opinions of Herbert Hoover^[5] such as "Hoover blanket" (old newspaper used as blanketing). A "Hoover flag" was an empty pocket turned inside out and "Hoover leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe when the sole wore through. A "Hoover wagon" was an automobile with horses hitched to it, frequently with the engine removed.^[half-dozen]

Later 1940, the economy recovered, unemployment fell, and shanty housing eradication programs destroyed all the Hoovervilles.^[7]

Population of Hoovervilles [edit]

While some Hoovervilles created a sort of government, most were unorganized collections of shanty houses. This lack of organisation has made it difficult to place the populations within Hoovervilles. Some claim to have been made upwardly of men, women, and children, while others claim to simply have had men.^[8]

I infrequent Hooverville of Seattle, Washington held a structured regime 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 urban center was that women and children would not exist allowed to live in the shantytown. This was supervised by "Mayor" Jackson, who also led the Vigilance Commission.^[two] Donald Francis Roy, a denizen of Seattle's Hooverville, took detailed recordings of the population during his fourth dimension there. In his journal, he states that of the 639 residents of the town, only 7 of them were women.^[2]

However, not every Hooverville fits this description. Photos from shantytowns across the country prove images of families, including women and children, domicile in their makeshift abode.^[9]

Regardless of the gender of the residents, Hoovervilles served as a common ground for many different nationalities and ethnicities. Economic disparity in the U.s. during the 1930s was not limited to American built-in individuals. Migrant workers and immigrants greatly suffered from the lack of work and fabricated up a large portion of the Hoovervilles beyond the land.^[2]

Roy'southward 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 per centum of the population was non-white.^[two] Among the white population, nationalities included England, Republic of ireland, Poland, Spain, Italy, and Russia.

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

Notable Hoovervilles [edit]

Among the hundreds of Hoovervilles across the U.S. during the 1930s were those in:

Anacostia in the District of Columbia: The Bonus Army, a group of World War I veterans seeking expedited benefits, established a Hooverville in 1932. Many of these men came from afar, illegally by riding on railroad freight trains to bring together the motility.^[10] At its maximum there were xv,000 people living there.^[eleven] The camp was demolished past units of the U.S. Regular army, commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Central Park, New York City: Scores of homeless families camped out at the Slap-up Lawn at Fundamental Park, then an empty reservoir.^[12]
Riverside Park, New York City: A shantytown occupied Riverside Park at 72nd Street during the depression.^[13]
Seattle had eight Hoovervilles during the 1930s.^[xiv] Its largest Hooverville on the tidal flats adjacent to the Port of Seattle lasted from 1932 to 1941.^[15]
St. Louis in 1930 had the largest Hooverville in America. It consisted of 4 distinct sectors. St. Louis's racially integrated Hooverville depended upon private philanthropy, had an unofficial mayor, created its own churches and other social institutions, and remained a viable community until 1936, when the federal Works Progress Administration allocated slum clearance funds for the area.^[16]

In popular culture [edit]

Hoovervilles accept often featured in popular culture, and nonetheless appear in editorial cartoons.^[17] Movies such every bit My Human being Godfrey (1936) and Sullivan's Travels (1941) sometimes sentimentalized Hooverville life.^[18]

Hooverville featured in the 2007 Physician Who stories Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks, which were set in 1930 New York. This version of the shanty town was based in Central Park.
Man's Castle, a 1933 picture show directed by Frank Borzage, focuses on a number of down-and-out characters living in a New York City Hooverville; the main characters (played by Spencer Tracy and Loretta Young) are lovers who cohabitate in a shanty outfitted with a skylight.^[19]
In My Man Godfrey, a 1936 screwball one-act, "Forgotten man" Godfrey Smith (played by William Powell) is living in a Hooverville when he is patronised and "adopted" by Irene (Carole Lombard).
In Sullivan's Travels, a 1941 comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, John L. Sullivan, a wanderlust movie director, played by Joel McCrea, visits a Hooverville and accidentally becomes a 18-carat tramp.^[twenty]
The musical Annie has a vocal called "Nosotros'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover", which takes identify in a Hooverville below the 59th Street Bridge. In the song, the chorus sings of the hardships they at present endure because of the Dandy Depression and their antipathy for the former president.^[21]
In 1987, the Liverpool grouping The Christians had a British hit with the song "Hooverville (And They Promised United states of america The World)".
During a temporary housing crunch,^[22] the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper refers to a fictional solution to the resulting housing crisis at Stanford University as "Hooverville" due to its proximity to Stanford's Hoover Tower.^[23]
The 2005 version of King Kong, directed past Peter Jackson, depicts the Hooverville in New York'south Central Park at the kickoff of the picture.
The 2005 movie Cinderella Man too referenced the Central Park encampment.
In the novel Bud, Non Buddy, set during the Neat Depression, an early scene involves the police dismantling a Hooverville. Bud calls it "Hooperville".^[24]
In Nelson Algren's A Walk on the Wild Side, the chief character Dove Linkhorn is described as descending from "Forest solitaries spare and swart, left landless as always in sandland and Hooverville now the time of the forests have passed."
In John Steinbeck'south famous novel The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family briefly settles into a Hooverville in California.^[25]
In Harry Turtledove's "Timeline-191" series of books, the equivalent of Hoovervilles in the United States and Amalgamated States are called Blackfordburghs and Mitcheltowns, respectively, later fictional presidents Hosea Blackford of the United states and Burton Mitchel of the CS. The term "Hoovervilles" withal exists in this timeline, admitting as a partisan term used by Socialists (who alongside the right-wing Democrats dominate US politics) to highlight their connected being under President Hoover and to detract from Blackford'southward poor legacy.
Hoovervilles are part of James Lincoln Collier's 2000 history bookThe Worst of Times: A Story of the Not bad Depression.
The Talespin comic book The Long Flying Home portrays a Hooverville filled with anthropomorphic-animals. Kit Cloudkicker was also a resident of it before joining Don Karnage'southward air pirates.

Run into also [edit]

Potemkin hamlet
Reaganville

References [edit]

^ Kaltenborn, Hans (1956). It Seems Like, Yesterday. p. 88.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Hoovervilles and Homelessness". washington.edu.
^ Carswell, Andrew T. (2012). "Hooverville". The Encyclopedia of Housing (2d ed.). SAGE. p. 302. ISBN9781412989572.
^ McElvaine, Robert S. (2000). The Depression and New Deal: A History in Documents. New York: Oxford Academy Printing.
^ 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. ISBN978-1598842210.
^ "Hoovervilles". HISTORY . Retrieved 2022-04-07 .
^ "Life in Hooverville- Photos of inside the shanty towns of the Great Depression". The Vintage News. 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2022-04-07 .
^ Tugwell, Rexford G. (September 1972). "Roosevelt and the Bonus Marchers of 1932". Political Science Quarterly. 78 (3): 363–376. doi:x.2307/2149206. JSTOR 2149206.
^ Dickson, Paul; Allen, Thomas B. (February 2003). "Marching on History". Smithsonian . Retrieved April 12, 2018 – via smithsonianmag.com.
^ Gray, Christopher (29 August 1993). "Streetscapes: Primal Park's 'Hooverville'; Life Along 'Depression Street'". The New York Times.
^ Vitello, Paul (four Apr 2007). "Why Listen to the Substitute? At 81, He does Tell History Firsthand". The New York Times.
^ "Map of Hoovervilles". washington.edu.
^ "Hoovervilles in Seattle". Archives Document Library for Washington State History. Archived from the original on June 25, 2007. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
^ Towey, Martin K. (1980). "Hooverville: St. Louis Had the Largest". Gateway Heritage. 1 (2): 2–eleven.
^ Silver, Nathan (2000). Lost New York. p. 258. ISBN0618054758.
^ Caldwell, Mark (2005). New York Night: The Mystique and Its History. p. 255. ISBN0743274784.
^ "Hoovervilles and Homelessness". depts.washington.edu . Retrieved 2018-04-17 .
^ Giovacchini, Saverio (2001). Hollywood modernism: film and politics in the age of the New Deal. p. 135. ISBN1566398630.
^ Michener Smith, Cecil; Litton, Glenn (1981). Musical one-act in America. p. 314. ISBN0878305645.
^ "Home Improvement". Stanfordalumni.org. Retrieved 2013-11-20 .
^ "Housing – Hooverville". Phdcomics.com . Retrieved 2013-xi-20 .
^ Caldwell, Catherine (2002). Bud, Not Buddy: Written report Guide and Student Workbook. p. 61. ISBN1609336607.
^ Starr, Kevin (1997). Endangered Dreams: The Smashing Depression in California. p. 261. ISBN0195118022.

External links [edit]

Photos of a new father effigy in Hooverville in Portland, Oregon, near the Ross Isle Bridge, from a Library of Congress website
Hoovervilles and Homelessness from the Bang-up Low in Washington State Project, including photographs, paintings, maps, essays and first-hand accounts of life in Seattle'south Hoovervilles.
Photos and details of a Hooverville in Seattle, Washington, from a Male monarch County, Washington website
Photographs of California Hoovervilles (Sacramento, Kern Canton), via Calisphere, California Digital Library
"Missouri Hooverville photographs". University of Missouri–St. Louis.