Click2Flicks - Cinderella Man, “HOOVERVILLES”, Chapter 5,

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>CINDERELLA MAN</p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 5 - "HOOVERVILLES"</b></font></p> </div>  <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">The free-wheeling, money-earning, flagrant-spending decade known as "<a href="http://www.pbs.org/jazz/time/time_roaring.htm" target="_blank"><b>The Roaring Twenties</b></a>" ended with a <a target="_blank" href="images/stock_market_crash.gif"><b>stock market crash</b></a>. (The link depicts the floor of the stock exchange just after <a href="http://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/estockmktcrash.htm" target="_blank"><b>the crash</b></a>.) Americans who had plenty suddenly had little, or nothing. <a target="_blank" href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0621a.gif"><b>Out of work</b></a>, out of food, out of their <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0675a.gif" target="_blank"><b>homes</b></a>, people were scared of the future.</p> <p>Herbert Hoover, while <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/28/19/28-1864a.gif" target="_blank"><b>wrapping up</b></a> his presidency and searching for ways to <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/28/19/28-1865a.gif" target="_blank"><b>explain</b></a> the country’s continuing economic <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/28/19/28-1866a.gif" target="_blank"><b>woes</b></a>, had a point when <a target="_blank" href="images/he_wrote.gif"><b>he wrote</b></a>:</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>The courage and enterprise of the people still exist and only await release from fears and apprehension.</i></b></font></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">But those “fears and apprehension” continued. Franklin Roosevelt, <a href="http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057/" target="_blank"><b>taking over</b></a> as President in 1933, struck a nerve when <a href="http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/real/28fear.rm" target="_blank"><b>he said</b></a> in his first inaugural address:</p> <center><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>We have nothing to fear - but - fear itself.</i></b></font></center> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">For anyone born after World War II, it is inconceivable that such a <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0676a.gif" target="_blank"><b>time</b></a> ever existed. The ongoing <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/gc/amrlg/lg11/lg110033.gif" target="_blank"><b>personal tragedy</b></a>, fear and utter <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0674a.gif" target="_blank"><b>despair</b></a>, which crippled the country, are nearly unimaginable today. But for those who experienced the reality of constant unemployment, insufficient food, <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0622a.gif" target="_blank"><b>homelessness</b></a> and lost family wealth, the memories are still vivid and painful. Photographs from the National Archives, which document the struggle, open a window - at least to some extent - into those difficult years.</p> <p><a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0682a.gif" target="_blank"><b>Uprooted</b></a>, out-of-work families packed up everything they owned and moved to California. <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0678a.gif" target="_blank"><b>Travel</b></a> wasn’t easy since Interstates did not yet connect the country. <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/8/27-0701a.gif" target="_blank"><b>Destitute mothers</b></a> had few, if any, options to provide for their children. <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0695a.gif" target="_blank"><b>Fathers</b></a> left their families “at home” while they went to the industrial north to find work. Their “<a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/16/17/16-1632a.gif" target="_blank"><b>bachelor cabins</b></a>” were nothing more than shanty towns. But there was also “<a href="http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/goldstein/22.jpg" target="_blank"><b>No Work</b></a>" for people in the north. The once-bustling docks of New York City were mostly quiet.</p> <p>By 1932, the <a target="_blank" href="images/worst_year.gif"><b>worst year</b></a> of the depression (follow the link to see the dramatic downturn in U.S. rates of production), nearly 25% of the American work force was <a target="_blank" href="images/unemployed.gif"><b>unemployed</b></a>. Without means of transportation, people had to <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/8/27-0767a.gif" target="_blank"><b>walk miles</b></a> just to see their families. <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/9/27-0816a.gif" target="_blank"><b>Living</b></a> in <a target="_blank" href="images/squatters_camp.gif"><b>squatters’ camps</b></a> (called “<a href="http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/depwwii/depress/depress.html" target="_blank"><b>Hoovervilles</b></a>"), <a target="_blank" href="images/dislocated_families.gif"><b>dislocated families</b></a> tried to <a href="http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~public/doclibrary/doclibrary_Hoovers.html" target="_blank"><b>stay together</b></a>. Even Central Park, in New York City, was <a target="_blank" href="images/turned_into.jpg"><b>turned into</b></a> a Hooverville.</p> <p>Before the days of the FDR along the East River, and the Westside Parkway along the Hudson, an artist (like Russian emigre Raphael Soyer) could draw <a target="_blank" href="images/images.jpg"><b>images</b></a>, along the water’s edge, of human hopelessness. Employment agencies in New York City were inundated with applications from well-dressed, <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/27/7/27-0624a.gif" target="_blank"><b>out-of-work</b></a> people. The “land of plenty” had become the land of hard times.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font face="arial, helvetica" size="2"><a href="cinderella_man_ch4.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="cinderella_man_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="cinderella_man_ch6.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>