What was it like to live in the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression? How were the shacks constructed? What was at the end of a soup kitchen line? Most histories of the Great Depression look at the era from the perspective of the movers and shakers of the time or follow a single person or family. Hooverville and the Unemployed gives a street view of what it was like to live in Seattle during the worst economic collapse in world history. This book also follows the newly unemployed men and women of the era as they tried to pick themselves up and build an organization to feed, clothe and care for one another. Finally, it reveals the pitfalls and successes of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs as seen from the man behind the shovel.