Following the stock market crash of 1929, the rising unemployment rate and widespread depression made it necessary for the city of New York to provide more commodious quarters for the city's homeless.
New York City in the
Great Depression: Sheltering the Homeless is a pictorial history of the shelters provided by the city during the Great Depression, including the Municipal Lodging House and its annexes in Manhattan, the farm colony at Camp LaGuardia, and the rehabilitation center at Hart Island. Archival photographs and documents depict the famous Great Depression breadlines, Mayor Jimmy Walker, Gov. Al Smith, and
Tammany Hall, as well as the city's immigrants and tenement housing.
Background Information
New York City at the mouth of the Hudson River is the largest city in America. The American economy felt into a slump after the Crash of 1929 and continued at low levesl throughout the next decade. Tammany Hall controlled the politics of New York City from 1854 until the election of Fiorello La Guardia as mayor in November 1933.
