# The TB Huts of the 1930s - Government solving problems **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 13, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024 "2020-08-13T20:16:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/1 "2020-08-13T20:16:03Z")
> **[How Not to Lose the Lockdown Generation](https://theintercept.com/2020/08/06/naomi-klein-coronavirus-youth-covid-19-future-unemployment/)** > > Lessons from the New Deal point the way forward in the era of Covid-19. > Picture this: You live in rural Arkansas and tragedy strikes. A family member has fallen ill with that contagious respiratory illness that has already killed so many — but you don’t have enough space in your small home to quarantine them in a room of their own. Your relative’s case doesn’t appear to be life-threatening, but you are terrified that their persistent cough will spread the illness to more vulnerable family members. You call the local public health authority to see if there is room in local hospitals, and they explain that they are all stretched too thin with emergency cases. There are private facilities, but you can’t afford those. > > Not to worry, you are told: A crew will be by shortly to set up a sturdy, well-ventilated, portable, tiny house in your yard. Once installed, your family member will be free to convalesce in comfort. You can deliver home-cooked meals to their door and communicate through open windows — and a trained nurse will be by for regular examinations. And no, there will be no charge for the house. > > This is not a dispatch from some future functional United States, one with a government capable of caring for its people in the midst of spiraling economic carnage and a public health emergency. It’s a dispatch from this country’s past, a time eight decades ago when it similarly found itself in the two-fisted grip of an even deeper economic crisis (the Great Depression), and a surging contagious respiratory illness (tuberculosis). > > Yet the contrast between how U.S. state and federal government met those challenges in the 1930s, and how they are failing so murderously to meet them now, could not be starker. Those tiny houses are just one example, but they are a revelatory one for the sheer number of problems those humble structures attempted to solve at once. > > Known as “isolation huts,” the [little clapboard houses](https://nddaily.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-wpa-tuberculosis-and-social.html) were distributed to poor families in several states. Small enough to fit on the back of a trailer, they had just enough space for a bed, chair, dresser, and stove, and were outfitted with large screened-in windows and shutters to maximize the flow of fresh air and sunshine — considered essential for TB recovery. > > As physical structures, the TB huts were an elegant answer to the public health [challenges](https://journal.chestnet.org/article/S0096-0217(16)32477-3/pdf) posed by crowded homes on the one hand and expensive private sanatoriums on the other. If houses were unable to accommodate safe patient quarantines, then the state, with Washington’s help, would just bring an addition to those houses for the duration of the illness. > > It’s worth letting that sink in, given the learned helplessness that pervades the U.S. today. For months, the White House hasn’t been able to figure out how to roll out free Covid-19 tests at anything like the scale required, let alone contact tracing, never mind quarantine support for poor families. Yet in the 1930s, during a much more desperate economic time for the country, state and federal agencies cooperated to deliver not just free tests but _free houses_ . > > And that is only the beginning of what makes it worth dwelling on the TB huts . The cabins themselves were built by very young men in their late teens and early 20s who were out of work and had signed up for the National Youth Administration. “The State Board of Health furnishes the materials for these cottages and NYA supplies the labor,” explained Betty and Ernest Lindley, authors of a 1938 [history](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5210630-a-new-deal-for-youth) of the program. “The total average cost of one hut is $146.28,” or about $2,700 in today’s dollars. > … This is a long, detailed, and pretty inspiring article that shows how a functioning government can work for its people to create solutions to problems under the most dire conditions. You might cry when you read it. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/2 "2020-08-14T02:26:58Z")
Lovely article! Thanks for sharing. It did bring up two questions for me 1. Why did the hut need room for a stove if you could get meals from your real house? 2. $2700 in today’s money?! That’s more of an exclamation than a question. I wonder if it could be done more cheaply now? Does it come with a bed? I bet a lot of people would say “kids today don’t want to do manual labor like this” without even giving kids today a chance to say yes or no. They’d do it. Skills are cool. I love the idea of a work program bubble! ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/3 "2020-08-14T02:43:03Z")
They didn’t mean cooking stove, Zipper, they meant heating stove. Though you could usually do some sort of stovetop cooking depending on what sort of stove. My guess would be either wood or coal fired in that era. Could it be done for less than $2700 today? Possibly, and probably even better. Sorta depends on whether or not those in the charge allow it to be done less expensively, or at all. But, yes, I can imagine it being built for less. Construction methods have changed since then. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/4 "2020-08-14T09:00:36Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > . . . article that shows how a functioning government can work for its people to create solutions . . . Besides a function government, you also need a functioning society. The cynic in me doubts that we have that now. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/5 "2020-08-14T09:16:02Z")
Use the FEMA trailers that never got used after Hurricane Katrina. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/6 "2020-08-14T12:25:06Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Besides a function government, you also need a functioning society. The cynic in me doubts that we have that now. Sadly, I agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2020, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-tb-huts-of-the-1930s-government-solving-problems/918024/7 "2020-08-14T13:23:36Z")
> [@DorkVader](#): > > They didn’t mean cooking stove, Zipper, they meant heating stove. Though you could usually do some sort of stovetop cooking depending on what sort of stove. My guess would be either wood or coal fired in that era. Ah! Thank you!