Chapter 17

Page 123

Depression Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh was one of the American cities most severely affected by the Great Depression, largely because its economy was so dependent on a single sector: steel. Pittsburgh’s prosperity had been built almost entirely on steel, coal, and heavy manufacturing. When the Depression hit in 1929, demand for new construction, automobiles, and machinery collapsed, all industries that consumed massive amounts of steel. So when the steel market fell, Pittsburgh fell with it.

Hoovervilles
These were the makeshift shantytowns that sprang up all over the United States during the Great Depression (early 1930s). They were named — sarcastically — after President Herbert Hoover, who was widely blamed for not doing enough to stop or relieve the economic collapse.

running a sideline in race records
the name used by the U.S. recording industry from roughly 1917 through the late 1940s for phonograph records made by Black musicians and marketed primarily to Black audiences. Wikipedia