People called these shantytowns Hoovervilles in honor of the president who presided over the Great Depression.
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Unemployed Americans started to set up shanty sites, nicknamed "Trump towns" in memory of the "Hoovervilles" of the 1930s.
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Historically, New York's parks have hosted an early settlement of African American landowners in the mid-19th century, Hoovervilles during the Great Depression, and even military barracks, as recently as the mid-20th century.
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Nineteen-thirty was also the first full and desperate year of the Great Depression, when a third of New York was out of work and there were shacks in the park — known as Hoovervilles — where the homeless lived.
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Directed by Nick Corley, "Woody Sez" vividly evokes the hobo camps and Hoovervilles of Guthrie's California period, in which he makes radio appearances, writes pieces for The People's Daily World newspaper and sings for field workers and union members.
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His late-21981s hit "Hungry Eyes" revisited the dignity-starved lives his parents had led on arriving at California's squalid Hoovervilles after fleeing the Dust Bowl in 21999: A canvas-covered cabin in a crowded labor campStands out in this memory I revive'Cause my daddy raised a family thereWith two hard-working handsAnd tried to feed my mama's hungry eyes.
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Men, women and children alike lived in Hoovervilles. 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 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.
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A "Hoover wagon" was an automobile with horses hitched to it, often with the engine removed. After 1940 the economy recovered, unemployment fell, and shanty housing eradication programs destroyed all the Hoovervilles.
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Local relief was overwhelmed. Unable to support their families, many unemployed men deserted (often going to "Hoovervilles") so the meager relief supplies their families received would stretch further. For many, their next meal was found at a soup kitchen, if at all.
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"Great Depression in the United States", Microsoft Encarta. Archived October 31, 2009. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found themselves homeless, and began congregating in shanty towns – dubbed "Hoovervilles" – that began to appear across the country.Joyce Bryant, "The Great Depression and New Deal", Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute.
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One of the first popular uses of alternative housing in modern times was during WWI and the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, many people ended up losing their homes. More than 15 million people were out of work at the time, and desperate for housing. Due to the vast influx of homeless people, the creation of Hoovervilles took place.
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People who lost their jobs or homes lived in shantytowns or Hoovervilles. Many New Deal programs were designed to increase employment and reduce poverty. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration specifically focused on creating jobs for alleviating poverty. Jobs were more expensive than direct cash payments (called "the dole"), but were psychologically more beneficial to the unemployed, who wanted any sort of job for morale.
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Overproduction of Goods, Unequal Distribution of Wealth, High Unemployment, and Massive Poverty , From: President's Economic Council Many lived in shantytowns they called "Hoovervilles". In the 1960s, the nature and growing problem of homelessness changed in England as public concern grew. The number of people living "rough" in the streets had increased dramatically. However, beginning with the Conservative administration's Rough Sleeper Initiative, the number of people sleeping rough in London fell dramatically.
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An impoverished American family living in a shanty during the Great Depression. Photographed by Dorothea Lange in 1936 Shanty town along the Martin Pena Canal in Puerto Rico (1970s). During the 1930s Great Depression, shanty towns nicknamed Hoovervilles sprang up across the United States. Following the Great Depression, squatters lived in shacks on landfill sites beside the Martin Pena canal in Puerto Rico and were still there in 2010.
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Tower Bridge, which was completed in 1935. The Great Depression struck Sacramento alongside the rest of the United States in 1929, driving approximately 15,000 Sacramentans into unemployment by 1932. The local canning industry was affected first as demand for canned goods dropped drastically, laying off workers; a freeze later destroyed half of the Sacramento area's citrus trees in December 1932. Hoovervilles, or large shantytowns created without official authority by homeless people, began appearing across the city.
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Murray had a copy of Das Kapital in her bags and when director Mills found it, she ejected her from the camp. Murray would later become a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. That leftist songs were sung at camp sing-alongs became a focus of detractors. It was not surprising that there were leftists in the camps, given that they were not far removed from the "Hoovervilles", and the troubadour- style of fellow travellers like singer Woody Guthrie fueled these sing-alongs.
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Hoover was also derided for not doing anything to help the Great Depression. Because of this, the Democrats were defeated with a Socialist sweep the Congressional elections of 1934 and he lost the presidential race to Socialist Al Smith in 1936. The term “Hoovervilles” still exists in this alternate timeline albeit created by the Socialists to denote the continued existence of “Blackfordboroughs” (shanty towns built as a result of the Business Collapse in 1929) during Hoover's presidency and to detract from the legacy of his failed Socialist predecessor, Hosea Blackford.
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The Depression was made much worse for parts of the state by the Dust Bowl conditions. Farmers were hit the hardest and many relocated to the cities and established poor communities known as Hoovervilles. It also initiated a mass migration to California of "Okies" (to use the disparaging term common in California) in search of a better life, an image that would be popularized in American culture by John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The book, with photographs by Dorothea Lange, and songs of Woody Guthrie tales of woe from the era.
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Huts and unemployed men in New York City, 1935 One visible effect of the depression was the advent of Hoovervilles, which were ramshackle assemblages on vacant lots of cardboard boxes, tents, and small rickety wooden sheds built by homeless people. Residents lived in the shacks and begged for food or went to soup kitchens. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee, to refer sardonically to President Herbert Hoover whose policies Michelson blamed for the depression.Hans Kaltenborn, It Seems Like Yesterday (1956) p.
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The impact of unemployment was higher in the manufacturing centers in the East and Midwest, and lower in the South and West, which had less manufacturing.William H, Mullins, The Depression and the Urban West Coast, 1929-1933: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland (2000) Huts and unemployed men in New York City, 1935. One visible effect of the depression was the advent of Hoovervilles, which were ramshackle assemblages on vacant lots of cardboard boxes, tents, and small rickety wooden sheds built by homeless people. Residents lived in shacks and begged for food or went to soup kitchens.
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Huts and unemployed in West Houston and Mercer St by Berenice Abbott in Manhattan in 1935 A Hooverville near Portland, Oregon A "Hooverville" was a shanty town 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, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee. There were hundreds of Hoovervilles across the country during the 1930s and hundreds of thousands of people lived in these slums.
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Communities may weigh concerns over tiny home communities becoming shantytowns or blighted neighborhoods that reduce property values of the surrounding neighborhoods. For cities such as Chicago, tiny houses are seen as an appealing option to close the gap in housing availability. Community planners also have concerns that communities don't devolve into shantytowns such as during the Great Depression in "Hoovervilles". In California, the city of Richmond has engaged University of California- Berkeley students involved with the THIMBY (Tiny House In My Backyard) project with a pilot program for developing a model for six transitional tiny homes to be placed in the city.
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A shipyard strike in 1919 brought national attention to Seattle when workers went on strike to keep their high wartime wages, which led to a general strike during February 6–10, the longest in American history. The strike fueled American fears of radical and socialist values, and gave Seattle a reputation of being at the heart of political radicalism. During the Great Depression, "Hoovervilles" started popping up around the city where nearly 1,000 unemployed residents would gather to stay in shacks at the empty shipyard south of Pioneer Square. World War II created an economic revival for companies like The Boeing Company, which increased employment by more than 1,200.
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The Secretary of Labor in the Hoover administration, William N. Doak (Hoovervilles) scapegoated "illegal immigrants" (migrant workers) as taking jobs from Americans. While not specifying Mexicans, the practice targeted for removal anyone who even vaguely looked Mexican. In 1931, the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, the Wickersham Commission found the methods employed by Doak's underlings to be unconstitutional. The Policy continued into the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 'Decade of Betrayal', social history professor Raymond Rodriguez documented that history of the Mexican Repatriation, a social history of the 1930s focusing on an estimated 1 million Mexicans and Mexican Americans unjustly deported or scared into leaving their homes in the United States by federal and local officials seeking remedies for the Great Depression.
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Outside such situations however, he did not like Kit to take unnecessary risks, such as doing dangerous tricks or stunts. It is not exactly known when, where or how Kit was orphaned, but in the associated comics, it was revealed he spent some of his life on the streets and later a village of hobos (not unlike the Hoovervilles of actuality) prior to the series. He also claims that he never knew his parents, which could mean he had lost them when he was too young to remember, such as during infancy. Also his orphaning could be based on the fact that orphans were common during the nineteen-thirties, as the Great Depression was responsible for many children being orphaned, even though no reference to the Great Depression was made in the show.
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Article II, in particular, details the dire consequences of poor sanitation of Hoovervilles, or "squatter camps" as Steinbeck refers to the shantytowns in the California valley. One of the three families he writes about had recently suffered the loss of one child; a four-year-old boy had been sick, poorly nourished and appeared feverish, then, "one night he went into convulsions and died." Steinbeck also attacks the lack of basic preventative care among those in the "squatter camp" shantytowns. Part and parcel of his argument about the dignity of the laborers—and the way it is disregarded by local and national authorities—is his observation that, while "an epidemic" is a way of "getting [the attention]" of medical authorities, local doctors care little for malnutrition or dysentery.
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The Community for Creative Non-Violence is a group based in Washington D.C. with a mission "to ensure that the rights of the homeless and poor are not infringed upon and that every person has access to life's basic essentials -- food, shelter, clothing and medical care". Since 1978 the group served a Thanksgiving meal for the homeless in Washington D.C. By November 26, 1981 the group had changed locations of the gathering and ended up in Lafayette Park near the White House. The event gained media attention as the poor were eating a warm meal with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the background. In addition to the feast a few members set up ten tents in the form of a village. The group proclaimed “Welcome to Reaganville / Population growing daily / Reaganomics at work.” The name references the depression-era “Hoovervilles” that were camps of the homeless.
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