Great life in the Hoovervilles...

Hoovervilles, the name of the shanty towns that were erected during the worst parts of the depression, lets historians realize the true extent of the great depression. In history class we learned a lot about the amount of people who were homeless and the constant migration of people looking for jobs, but where did these people live during the years of the depression? People lived in small poorly made towns called Hoovervilles, named after Herbert Hoover who took all the blame for the depression after the federal government did not answer the pleas of the poor Americans. Hoovervilles began to show up after many families that had lost their job began to get evicted from their homes. Leaving many families to fend for themselves on the streets. These towns were made mostly of anything that the people could find. Cardboard, lumber, tin cans, and other useless thing people usually thew away. Some towns had populations so large unemployed stone masons were able to create building as tall as 20 fee and some even had unofficial mayors. These towns were not your high end Los Altos Hills house but were always being rebuild from damage done by rain, wind, and other forms of nature. All in all Hoovervilles were just another result of the great depression, however today we have similar towns under highways and hiding in places that we wouldnt normally see, this shows us that hoovervilles are not just a part of history, but some of the problems of poverty that we see today

http://www.history.com/topics/hoovervilles