USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Some were as small as a few hundred people while others, in bigger metropolitan areas such as Washington, D.C. and New York City, boasted thousands of inhabitants. St. Louis, Missouri, and Seattle, Washington, were home to two of the country’s largest and longest-standing Hoovervilles.

Detailed explanation-2: -In Seattle, unemployment was 11% in April 1930, rising to 26% by January 1935. Families doubled up in apartments, others were evicted and built makeshift houses. Groups of these dwellings for the homeless were called Hoovervilles.

Detailed explanation-3: -"Hooverville” became a common term for shacktowns and homeless encampments during the Great Depression. There were dozens in the state of Washington, hundreds throughout the country, each testifying to the housing crisis that accompanied the employment crisis of the early 1930s.

Detailed explanation-4: -The poor congregated in cardboard shacks in so-called Hoovervilles on the edges of cities across the nation; hundreds of thousands of the unemployed roamed the country on foot and in boxcars in futile search of jobs. Although few starved, hunger and malnutrition affected many.

Detailed explanation-5: -Others were simply holes dug in the ground covered with pieces of tin. The largest Hooverville, located in St. Louis, Missouri, was home to as many as 8, 000 homeless people from 1930 to 1936. The longest lasting Hooverville, located in Seattle, Washington, stood as a semi-autonomous community from 1931 to 1941.