Hooverville

Hooverville near Portland, Oregon

A Hooverville was the popular name for a shanty town built by homeless men during the Great Depression. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of the Democratic National Committee. The name Hooverville has also been used to describe the tent cities commonly found in modern-day America.

These settlements were often formed on empty land and consisted of jerry-built shacks and tents. Authorities did not officially recognize these Hoovervilles and occasionally removed the occupants for technically trespassing on private lands, but they were frequently tolerated out of necessity.

Some of the men who were forced to live in these conditions possessed building skills and were able to build their houses out of stone. Most people, however, resorted to building their residences out of box wood, cardboard, and any scraps of metal they could find. Some individuals even lived in sewer mains.

Most of these unemployed residents of the Hoovervilles begged for food from those who had housing during this era. Democrats coined other terms, such as "Hoover blanket" (old newspaper used as blanketing) and "Hoover flag" (an empty pocket turned inside out). "Hoover leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe with the sole worn through. A "Hoover wagon" was an automobile with horses tied to it because the owner could not afford gasoline; in Canada, these were known as Bennett buggies, after the Prime Minister.

Notable Hoovervilles

• In Central Park, New York City, Hooverville existed between 1931-33 in the former Lower Reservoir of the city water supply system, which was being emptied and landscaped into the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond.
• The Bonus Army, a group of World War I veterans seeking expedited benefits, established a Hooverville in Anacostia in the District of Columbia in 1932. At its maximum there were 15,000 people living there. The camp was demolished by units of the U.S. Army under Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gen. George S. Patton.
• Seattle had its largest Hooverville on the tidal flats adjacent to the Port of Seattle that lasted from 1932 to 1941.
• The largest long-lived Hooverville was on the shores of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, with a population of more than 1,000.
• Brooklyn, New York, had a "Hoover City" from roughly Columbia Street to Court Street and from Mill Street to Lorraine Street.

In Popular culture

• Hoovervilles feature prominently in the later part of John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath after the Joad family arrive in California.
• In the musical Annie there is a song called "We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hoover," which takes place in a Hooverville beneath the 59th Street Bridge. In the song, the chorus sings of the hardships they now suffer because of the Great Depression and their contempt for the former president.
• In 1987 the Liverpool group The Christians had a UK hit with the song "Hooverville (And They Promised Us The World)" .
• During a temporary housing crisis, the comic strip Piled Higher and Deeper referred to a fictional solution to the resulting housing crisis at Stanford University as "Hooverville" due to its proximity to Stanford's Hoover Tower.
• The 2005 movie Cinderella Man also referenced the Central Park encampment.
• In the 2005 version of King Kong, directed by Peter Jackson, the Hooverville in New York's Central Park is depicted at the beginning of the film.
• Two episodes of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who depicted the Central Park Hooverville. The episodes, "Daleks in Manhattan" and "Evolution of the Daleks," were broadcast on April 21 and April 28, 2007. The episodes contained a minor historical inaccuracy as they were set in November 1930; the Central Park Hooverville didn't begin until 1931. The most commonly used motto of its inhabitants was "This is as far as a man can fall."
• The novel Bud, Not Buddy is set in the Great Depression, and an early scene involves a Hooverville being dismantled by the police.
• In the 1988 movie They Live, Nada, played by Roddy Piper settled into a Hooverville in the city of Los Angelos.

External links

• Photos of a new father figure in Hooverville in Portland, Oregon, near the Ross Island Bridge, from a Library of Congress website
• Photos and details of a Hooverville in Seattle, Washington, from a King County, Washington website
• Photographs of California Hoovervilles (Sacramento, Kern County), via Calisphere, California Digital Library