Depression-Era Transients
Decade:
1930s
Topic:
People in Motion
In the 1930s, the Great Depression forced many people to become transients, traveling the country in search of work (Sheridan, 1995). Many of these people found themselves in Arizona. Federal, state, and private organizations sought to assist these people by providing food, shelter, and medical care, a task that frequently proved overwhelming.
Read About It
Use the document analysis sheet and the photograph analysis sheet to uncover clues about the people that created the documents.
- Copy of a letter from J. C. Brodie to Governor Moeur, December 13, 1933
- Camp Plot Plan, Yuma Transient Camp
- Letter from D. B. Crozer to Governor Jones, March 3, 1939
- Letter from Benjamin L. Galloway, February 11, 1935, re: sanitary conditions in Phoenix transient camp
- Copy of a letter from H. H. Hotchkiss to R. L. Whitlow, January 27, 1934
- Copy of a letter from P. B. Murphy to Florence M. Warner, June 20, 1934
- Letter from Eileen Ward to Dr. Ellen C. Potter, January 2, 1936
- Letter from H. R. Wood to Governor Moeur, February 20, 1936
- Summary of Phoenix Transient Camp case 338-C-Phx, 1934
- Telegram from Governor Moeur to Senator Hayden, Senator Ashurst, and Congressman Douglas, January 26, 1933
Understand It
- What caused people to become transients?
- Who created the documents linked above? What did they think of transients? Whose opinion about transients is not represented in these documents?
- If you had lived during the Great Depression, what would you have done to help the transients, and why?
Explore More
Visit the websites below to learn more. Based on this new information, have your answers to the questions above changed?
For Students
- Children in a democracy.A migratory family living in a trailer in an open field.Today's document from the National Archives
- Emergency Relief Administration Transient Camps
- American Memory: The Migrant Experience
For Teachers