Page 53 - All About History - Issue 26-15

What was it like?
NEW YORK, 1933

Hoovervilles were named after Unemployed New Yorkers
President Hoover, who was were put to work selling
blamed for the depression apples on the street

Families

Not only were penniless couples
Housing forced to delay marriages they
couldn’t afford, but the divorce
With unemployment peaking at 25 per rate also dropped as people were
cent, hundreds of thousands of Americans unable to pay legal fees. Traditional
were unable to support themselves and roles in the family were challenged
were forced into homelessness. All these as women found it easier to find
displaced people began to form shantytowns work and became the primary
known as Hoovervilles, which were made up breadwinners. Many frustrated
of cardboard boxes, tents and wooden sheds, men abandoned their families, and
and lacked sinks or cesspools, so garbage some 1.5 million women were left
was simply thrown into the street. to support their children alone.

Art FDR’s New Deal funded
construction projects
in an attempt to jump-
The Great Depression inspired a start the economy
number of American writers to pen
some of the most celebrated novels
of all time, such as John Steinbeck’s
The Grapes Of Wrath and Of Mice
And Men. The writers of the period
were able to start their careers
thanks to the Federal Writers’
Project – a relief art program
introduced in 1935.

Many of John Steinbeck’s novels centred on
working class people during the depression

Media Government

While many were unable to spare President Herbert Hoover was highly criticised
for his lack of action in combating the Great
money for entertainment, films were Depression, and when elections were held in 1932,
still a well-liked pastime. Comedies Franklin Delano Roosevelt easily won. In opposition
and gangster flicks that distracted to his predecessor, FDR went about creating a
from everyday hardships were series of reforms known as the First New Deal to
especially successful. Because it was help rebuild the nation. While national debt as a
free, listening to radio broadcasts proportion of GNP rose from 20 per cent to 40 per
was a very popular pastime with cent under Hoover, it did not rise any further and
soap operas, sporting events and remained steady with Roosevelt in charge.
swing music all gaining popularity. © Rex Features

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