Period 1
11/19/17
Hoovervilles
The Great Depression was one of the worst economic downfalls in the US, millions were left jobless, and homeless, it was so bad in fact that Americans started immigrating to the Soviet Union. So, of course, Americans angered with this had to put the blame somewhere, and decided that President Herbert Hoover was the best person for this. So throughout all of the public criticism and backlash of Hoover's policies, the American society began to recognize that the government was creating new towns however they were extremely horrible built and poor. These towns were called "Hoovervilles," they could be compared to nowadays "projects" where the government creates mass amounts of homes for the least amount of money possible in order to give the poor somewhere to live. This is what Herbert Hoover did during the Great Depression, mass amounts of people would be moved to these "Hoovervilles" and the situations within these slums were not ideal. They were extremely dirty, with poor water when there was any, sometimes they were placed near dumps or sewers and this caused the Americans to riot. Numerous of the "Hoovervilles" were set on fire and destroyed by angry mobs of civilians.
Thank you for your interesting post, Gavin. It would make sense that the American people would be angry with these "Hoovervilles", seeing them as a symbol of the depression they were a part of. However, I was surprised that many of them were set on fire and destroyed since destroying them would only hurt the people living in them.
ReplyDeleteGavin, I thought that your article was interesting and highlighted an integral pat of the Hoover Administration. As you said, the people blamed Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression, but people reflected this sentiment in many other ways than just calling their shanty towns "Hoovervilles". In fact, many Democrats also created terms that highlighted the negative atmosphere during this presidency. Terms included "Hoover blankets" (old newspaper that had to be used as blanketing), "Hoover Flag's (empty pockets turn inside out), "Hoover leather" (referred to cardboard which was often used to fix clothing and other materials.) And finally, "Hoover automobiles" referred to cars being replaced by/pulled by horses instead of using fuel. I think it was the rapid change from the high life of the 1920s to the terrible living conditions in the 1930s that fueled the anger towards Hoover and the new quality of life that Americans faced. Do you think that Hoover could have taken better action to alleviate the stresses on the poor?
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville