HOOVERVILLES

What were they?
They were shanty towns built by homeless in the Great Depression. During this period, there were hundreds of Hoovervilles built across the country, and hundreds of thousands of people lived there in slums.

Who were they named after?
They were named after Hervert Hoover, who was the president of the USA while it was in the Great Depression, and was blamed for it.


In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family stay in a Hooverville. Who wrote the novel?
John Steinbeck wrote the novel. He was from English, German and Irish descent, and he lived in the USA in a rural town, a frontier settlement which was one of the world's most fertile lands. In his childhood, he worked in a farm.
When he was 28 his money ran out due to a slow market, so he experienced the Crash of the 29.