ABSTRACT
After the Civil War, the industrialization of American society began in earnest. From roughly 1870 through the turn of the century, industrialization produced a huge demand for migrant industrial workers. The large number of transient and unskilled laborers who met this demand gave rise, in many of the growing industrial cities of this era, to a section or district that became home to them. Since 1980, homeless single males have been younger and much more likely to be minority, particularly black, than they were on either the Main Stem or Skid Row. The institution that regulated the labor of Skid Row residents was the labor pool, or temporary employment agency. Through this mechanism, men sometimes were given work but always were exploited. Businesses contracted with labor pools to provide cheap unskilled labor on a temporary basis, for "spot" jobs. Public assistance did little to alleviate the poverty of men on Skid Row.
