{"id":1683,"date":"2019-08-01T08:59:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1683"},"modified":"2019-08-01T08:59:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:59:01","slug":"bertha-mccall-on-americas-moving-people-1940","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/23-the-great-depression\/bertha-mccall-on-americas-moving-people-1940\/","title":{"rendered":"Bertha McCall on America\u2019s \u201cMoving People\u201d (1940)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bertha McCall, general director of\nthe National Travelers Aid Association, acquired a special knowledge of the\nmassive displacement of individuals and families during the Great Depression. In\n1940, McCall testified before the House of Representatives\u2019 Select Committee to\nInvestigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens on the nature of\nAmerica\u2019s internal migrants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My name\nis Bertha McCall. I am the general director of the National Travelers Aid\nAssociation. I am here because our association, together with a number of other\nprivate national organizations, has been interested for many years in the problem\nof what we call \u201cmoving people.\u201d We are interested in this problem because we\nsee the individuals, and go from the specific back to the general. You have\njust heard of the general, and we start with the specific and go to that\ngeneral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nproblem of transiency and migration was not a new phenomenon in our history.\nDrought, flood, war, opening of new territory \u2014 all resulted in making\nindividuals in the families move to new pastures in hopes of finding better\nones. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nnational private agencies of the United States have used such terms as \u201cnonresident,\u201d\n\u201ctransient,\u201d \u201cmigrant,\u201d \u201cmigratory workers,\u201d \u201cimmigrants,\u201d \u201ctravelers,\u201d \u201cstrangers,\u201d\n\u201cnonsettled,\u201d \u201cdislodged\u201d\u2014 these are all terms that we apply to people who are\nwithout roots in a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2\nyears from 1929 to 1931 there was special cause for migration. For those in our\ncountry who had remained stationary for many years, carrying on the work of the\nworld, came the closing of shops and factories and the loss of jobs that had\nseemed as permanent as life itself. It is not necessary to recall the problem\nof transiency in the days of 1930 and 1931. The Federal Government felt the pressure\nof this and called upon such agencies as the National Y. W. C. A., the Family\nWelfare Association, the National Travelers Aid, to advise in planning for this\nspecial problem. Community after community reported that it was swamped with\nthe numbers of people moving around, especially the young because one was doing\none thing in one area and one in another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nproblem of transiency and migration was not new in 1931. We had known about it\noff and on for many years. I recall from my own experience seeing the letters\nthat came into the Federal Government agency, the reconstruction group of Washington,\nstacked very high, from all parts of the country, saying, \u201cCome out and help\nus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have\nknown for a long time the nature of the people in this group. We have evidence\nto prove from private agencies, from public agencies, from direct association with\nthe transients themselves, that a transient population differs very little from\nthe average static population. \u2026 We all know that there was a period in which\nthe general public looked upon transients as bums and hoboes. The Federal transient\nprogram records show that most of these people were enterprising and energetic.\nA good many of them had good social background and good educational\npreparation. Except for the fact that these people are nonresidents, they are\nnot a distinct and separate group of Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\nCurtis: Miss McCall, what one thing more than anything else makes it necessary\nfor families to take to the road in search of a home or jobs or something or\nother? What puts these people out? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miss\nMcCall: Well, the whole family, that is, the family as a whole, when it picks\nup and goes, does so because it does not have enough to live on well where it\nis and thinks that the next field is much greener than the one where it is, and\nit keeps on going in that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: U.S. House of Representatives, Interstate Migration: Hearings before the Select Committee to\nInvestigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens<\/em> (Washington: Government\nPrinting Office, 1940), 43-45, 60. Available\nvia Internet Archive (https:\/\/archive.org\/stream\/interstatemigrat01unit\/interstatemigrat01<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bertha McCall, general director of the National Travelers Aid Association, acquired a special knowledge of the massive displacement of individuals and families during the Great Depression. In 1940, McCall testified before the House of Representatives\u2019 Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens on the nature of America\u2019s internal migrants. My name is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":814,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1683","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1684,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1683\/revisions\/1684"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}