View source for Trailer trash

{{Short description|Derogatory term for mobile home dwellers}}
{{Use American English|date=May 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2024}}
{{for|the song|The Lonesome Crowded West}}
[[File:1958 photo of Zimmer trailer in a trailer park in Tampa Florida.jpg|thumb|Trailer park in Tampa, Florida, in 1958]]
{{Discrimination sidebar}}
'''''Trailer trash''''' is a derogatory [[North American English]] term for [[poverty|poor people]] living in a [[travel trailer|trailer]] or a run-down [[mobile home]] in a bad neighborhood.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Spears|first1=Richard A.|title=McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions|date=1 Oct 2005|publisher=McGraw-Hill|isbn=0071461078|quote=the poorest of people who live in run-down house trailers in bad neighborhoods. (Used with singular or plural force. Rude and derogatory.) : She's just trailer trash. Probably doesn't even own shoes.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|quote=poor people living in trailer parks in the US}}</ref> It is particularly used to denigrate [[white people]] living in such circumstances.<ref>{{cite web |title=Trailer trash |url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trailer+trash |url-status=deviated |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100804212739/http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trailer+trash |archive-date=2010-08-04 |publisher=Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon |quote=a poor, lower-class white person, esp. one living in a mobile home with trash in the vicinity}}</ref>

==History==
In the mid-20th century, poor whites who could not afford to buy suburban-style [[tract housing]] began to purchase mobile homes, which were not only cheaper but could be easily relocated if work in one location ran out. These &ndash; sometimes by choice and sometimes through local [[zoning laws]] &ndash; gathered in trailer parks, and the people who lived in them became known as "trailer trash" with the term dating to at least 1952.<ref>Harold H. Martin, “Don't Call Them Trailer Trash,” The Saturday Evening Post, August 2, 1952, Vol. 225, No. 5. </ref> Despite many of them having jobs, albeit sometimes itinerant ones, the character flaws that had been perceived in [[white trash|poor white trash]] in the past were transferred to trailer trash, and trailer camps or parks were seen as being inhabited by retired people, migrant workers, and, generally, 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.<ref name=isen240>[[Nancy Isenberg|Isenberg, Nancy]] (2016) ''White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America'' New York: Penguin. pp.240-47 {{isbn|978-0-14-312967-7}}</ref>

Trailers got their start in the 1930s, and their use proliferated during the housing shortage of [[World War II]] when the Federal government used as many as 30,000 of them to house defense workers, soldiers, and sailors throughout the country, but especially around areas with a large military or defense presence, such as [[Mobile, Alabama]] and [[Pascagoula, Mississippi]]. In her book ''Journey Through Chaos'', reporter [[Agnes E. Meyer|Agnes Meyer]] of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' traveled throughout the country, reporting on the condition of the "neglected rural areas", and described the people who lived in the trailers, tents, and shacks in such areas as malnourished, unable to read or write, and generally ragged. The workers who came to Mobile and Pascagoula to work in the shipyards there were from the backwoods of the South, "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]] and [[crime]] rates, and of allowing [[prostitution]] to thrive in their "Hillbilly Havens", and letting their children go undisciplined, causing high [[juvenile delinquency]] rates. The trailers themselves &ndash; sometimes purchased second- or third-hand &ndash; were often unsightly, unsanitary, and dilapidated, causing communities to zone them away from the more desirable neighborhoods, which meant away from schools, stores, and other necessary facilities, often literally on the other sides of the railroad tracks.<ref name=isen240 />

==See also==
{{Portal|Society}}
*[[Hillbilly]]
*[[Pea-pickers]]
*[[Redneck]]
*[[White trash]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book | last=Black | first=R. | title=Trailer Trash Cookin' | publisher=Hearts 'N Tummies Cookbook Company | year=2004 | isbn=978-1-57166-320-7 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=snTLPQAACAAJ}}

==External links==
*{{wiktionary-inline|trailer trash}}

{{Ethnic slurs}}

[[Category:American phraseology]]
[[Category:Class-related slurs]]
[[Category:English phrases]]
[[Category:Ethnic and racial stereotypes]]
[[Category:Stereotypes of the working class]]
[[Category:Working class in the United States]]
[[Category:Stereotypes of white Americans]]