Great Depression: Causes, Soup Kitchens, and Hoovervilles

Causes of the Great Depression

• Over-expansion of Credit
• High Capital Surplus
• Industrial Over-expansion
• Technological Unemployment
• Agricultural Over-expansion
• Imbalance in International Trade

A New American Paradox: Breadlines and Soup Kitchens

Although soup kitchens were not unknown to the American lower classes before 1929, they grew as the economic depression intensified and peaked by 1932.

When soup kitchens first appeared, they were run by churches or private charities. The Capuchin Services Center in southeast Detroit, for example, served 1,500 to 3,000 people a day. That center opened on November 2, 1929.

Private volunteers were also important in setting up soup kitchens all over the US. By the mid-1930s, state and federal governments also were operating them.

Soup kitchens would either be run outdoors, in churches, cafeterias, or in service centers in the cities and towns. These kitchens served mostly soup and bread. Soup was economical because water could be added to serve more people if necessary.

With the improved economic conditions that followed World War II, soup kitchens became less widely used. In the United States, there was a resurgence of soup kitchens following the cut in welfare that were implemented in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan got to the presidency and introduced cuts in government spending and income taxes.

Hoovervilles

In the 1930s, as millions of people lost their jobs, shantytowns formed coast to coast in cities. Some families were fortunate enough to stay with friends and family members that hadn't been evicted yet, but homeless men, women, and children were forced to take up residence in shacks.

Those shack "neighborhoods" were nicknamed Hoovervilles in "honor" of President Herbert Hoover, as many blamed Hoover for the downfall of economic stability and lack of government help. In fact, the small amount of resources that the federal government actually made available often did not go to the sick, hungry, and homeless. That was simply because many city officials were corrupt and kept those valuable resources to themselves. One of the largest Hoovervilles lay in the center of New York's Central Park, but "squatters' shacks" and rickety structures popped up everywhere.