Dissertation Information for Christina Anne Sheehan Gold NAME: - Christina Anne Sheehan Gold
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- History
SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1998)
ADVISORS: - Eric H. Monkkonen
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - None
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected
Title: Hoovervilles: Homelessness and squatting in California during the Great Depression
Abstract: By examining squatter settlements, called "Hoovervilles" and "jungles," in California during the Great Depression, this dissertation enhances our understanding of how Americans adapted to economic crisis, and illuminates the tenacity of historical American attitudes about and responses to homelessness. Firmly embedded in a social history approach, this work studies one of America's most "silent" populations by exploring the ways that they built their homes and communities in Hoovervilles. An interdisciplinary analysis incorporates the theory and methodology of urban planners who study contemporary homeless in the United States and squatting in the developing world.
First, this dissertation accounts for the rise of homelessness and squatting during the Great Depression. Then, it proceeds from a "micro" focus on squatter demographics and their homes and settlements into a "macro" look at public policy attempts to deal with squatting and public perceptions of the homeless.
Although settled Californians worried that squatting was a radical and subversive act, squatting during the depression was essentially conservative in nature. Squatters built and lived in their homes and communities in a manner that reflected traditional American values like property ownership and the work ethic. Settled residents and policy makers responded to the homeless and squatters with the fear and hostility born of centuries old American attitudes toward the homeless. Strands of thought and action broke away from these backward-looking tendencies, but for the most part, Hoovervilles were clearly embedded in a tenacious historical context that continued to see homelessness and squatting in very traditional American terms.
This dissertation balances the current east coast, urban bias in most studies of historical homelessness with a focus on rural homelessness in the West. It also adds depth to our understanding of the Dust Bowl migrants by casting them in their broader historical context as a homeless population and as agricultural migrants. Finally, this dissertation contributes greater historical perspective to our knowledge of contemporary homelessness by emphasizing the pervasiveness of firmly entrenched ideas about the homeless and the ways of managing them with public policy.
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MPACT Scores for Christina Anne Sheehan Gold A = 0
C = 0
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TA = 0
calculated 2008-10-08 11:11:19
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