Editing White trash (section)

==="Trailer trash"===
[[Caravan (trailer)|Trailers]] got their start in the 1930s, and their use proliferated during the housing shortage of [[World War II]], when the Federal government used 30,000 of them to house defense workers, soldiers and sailors, especially around areas with a large military or defense presence such as [[Mobile, Alabama]] and [[Pascagoula, Mississippi]]. Reporter [[Agnes E. Meyer]] of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' travelled throughout the country, reporting on the condition of the "neglected rural areas", and described the people who lived in the trailers, tents, and shacks there as malnourished, illiterate, and ragged. The shipyard workers who came to Mobile and Pascagoula were "subnormal swamp and mountain folk" whom the locals described as "vermin"; elsewhere, they were called "squatters". They were accused of having loose morals, high illegitimacy rates, and of allowing [[prostitution]] to thrive in their "Hillbilly Havens". The trailers themselves &ndash; sometimes purchased second- or third-hand &ndash; were often unsightly, unsanitary, and dilapidated, causing communities to zone them away from more desirable areas which had schools, stores, and other necessary facilities.{{sfnp|Isenberg|2016|pp=240–247}}

In the mid-20th century, poor whites who could not afford suburban-style [[tract housing]] began to purchase mobile homes, which were not only cheaper, but which could be easily relocated if work in one location ran out. Through a combination of choice and local [[zoning laws]], these people gathered in trailer camps, and the people who lived in them became known as "[[trailer trash]]". Despite many of them having jobs, albeit sometimes itinerant ones, the character flaws perceived in poor white trash were also applied to so-called "trailer trash", and trailer camps or parks were seen as being inhabited by retired persons, migrant workers, and the poor. By 1968, a survey found that only 13% of those who owned and lived in mobile homes had [[White-collar worker|white collar]] jobs.{{sfnp|Isenberg|2016|pp=240–247}}{{clear left}}