Migrant Workers-Farming in California 1930s -2011


 

The Great Depression hit...

The Great Plains had dried up...

 

Hundreds of thousands were left jobless and homeless...

 

 

Where was there  to go?

 

 

 

California!

"The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, the farm houses...The distant cities, the little towns in the orchard land, and the morning sun, golden on the valley...The peach trees and the walnut groves, and the dark geen patches of oranges.  And red roofs among the trees, and barns-- rich barns" (Steinbeck, 227).

 

October twenty ninth, Black Tuesday; ready or not, life was about to change for every family during the year of 1929. The depression had an effect on everyone, rich and poor families alike especially those dependent on farming, mining, and construction. With the pressure of the stock market crash coming down hard on these businesses, employers started laying off employees in mass quantities.

 

In the early 1930s, thousands upon thousands of desperate people across America made the migration to California, looking for a brighter and less poverty-filled future.

The majority of these people were agriculturalists.  California advertised an abundance of fertile land, which was very appealing to these farmers.  Because the massive drought had encompassed the Great Plains, many farmers had no chance but to abandon the land they knew and move west, in hope of a better future.

 

Seven thousand new migrants appeared at the California border each month.  A few got jobs in agricultural sectors, the rest continued to live in the poverty that they had arrived in. Throughout the 1930's, over 2,500,000 people moved out of the mid-west. In result, over 200,000 of them moved to California.

 

To watch a video (made by other students) about the migrant workers that moved to California, click here!

 

 

 

Farming In California- 1930s

  

California produced mostly fruits, vegetables, and dairy products.  In the early 1930s, the central valleys of California were still poorly irrigated.  The Hoover Dam, built in 1935 on the Colorado River, provided enough water to the valleys to make them fertile areas for growing crops.   

 

Although the farmers had work, the living conditions were terrible. They lived in disease ridden camps and the wages were too low to get families out of poverty. Farmers also soon found that competition rose. There were fewer jobs in California than they had thought. Wages became lower and lower, and so did the social status of the migrant workers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So this is Nebraska

by: Ted Kooser

The gravel road rides with a slow gallop   

over the fields, the telephone lines   

streaming behind, its billow of dust   

full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

 

On either side, those dear old ladies,

the loosening barns, their little windows   

dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs   

hide broken tractors under their skirts.

 

So this is Nebraska. A Sunday   

afternoon; July. Driving along

with your hand out squeezing the air,   

a meadowlark waiting on every post.

 

Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,

top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,   

a pickup kicks its fenders off

and settles back to read the clouds.

 

You feel like that; you feel like letting   

your tires go flat, like letting the mice   

build a nest in your muffler, like being   

no more than a truck in the weeds,

clucking with chickens or sticky with honey   

or holding a skinny old man in your lap   

while he watches the road, waiting

for someone to wave to. You feel like

 

waving. You feel like stopping the car

and dancing around on the road. You wave   

instead and leave your hand out gliding   

larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

Ted Kooser, “So This Is Nebraska” from Sure Signs. Copyright © 1980 by Ted Kooser. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, www.upress.pitt.edu. Used by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEEDPATCH, Calif.— The relentless geometry of the farm fields still vanishes into infinity. When Earl Shelton,a 68-year-old retired oil refinery mechanic, walks the grounds of the former Weedpatch camp to which he and thousands of other Okies migrated during the Depression, the scrapbook in his mind turns to the image of Slab 529. That spit of concrete with a tent on it was home, on and off, for 13 years.

Mr. Shelton was 7 when he arrived at the camp, which was immortalized by John Steinbeck in

his 1939 novel ''Grapes of Wrath.'' Like many other Dust Bowlers, who have revived the once-derogatory word ''Okie'' as a term of endearment and source of pride, he can vividly summon the chapters of his own life: Of losing a wheel at night en route to Needles and burning a Sears catalog for light, of hot summer nights cooled only by bedsheets soaked with a hose and then draped over the tent. In the 1930's, Mr. Shelton's father, Tom, a widower with four sons, joined tens of thousands of other dispossessed farmers -- real-life Tom Joads hailing from Arkansas, Texas and Missouri as well as Oklahoma -- leaving the log house

three miles from Scipio, Okla., in a Model A. In these fertile fields they sought deliverance from drought and the Depression in the largest peacetime migration in the nation's history. ''I don't recall going hungry,'' Mr. Shelton said. ''But I know my dad did.'' He and other members of the local Dust Bowl Historical Foundation are now trying to raise money to restore the remaining original buildings of Weedpatch camp, which opened in 1936 as a response to unsanitary living conditions among migrants. But, in this year of the centennial of John Steinbeck's birth, the vestiges of Okie culture are vanishing, as the Dust Bowl generation ages and the texture of the community changes. Every morning, Doris Weddell, a retired librarian who is spearheading the preservation effort, picks up her scissors to clip the obituaries: Ann M. Heid (1929, Cici, Okla.), Alice R. Terry (1912, Anadarko, Okla.), Roy Earl Livsey (1913, Thayler, Tex.).

 

By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
Published: February 5, 2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Analysis of Images and Information:

Throughout The Grapes of Wrath, farming is a recurring theme. The 1930's caused trouble for many, with the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The Joad's experience a lot of trouble because of these two things and therefore leave for the promised land, California. They are a prime example of migrant workers in the 1930's. Just like many migrant workers, the Joad's are naive and hopeful, ready to set their life back on track. However, also like many other migrant workers, they end up having trouble finding work and good places to live. The information above connects to the story because it is exactly what the Joad's went through. They picked up and left their home, hoping to find work and shelter in California, which was hard, just like how it is mentioned above. All of the pictures used show what times were like. The first picture shows a luminous dust cloud closing in on a small neighborhood in Texas. The second is an ad for California, similar to ones from the 1930's. The ad is something that convinced many people without homes to travel the long journey for work, food and shelter. The third picture shows a mother and her children, dirty and tired. They are migrant workers, working to live. The fourth picture shows a tractor from the 1930's. Machinery like this was often used on farms in California during this time period. The fifth and final picture shows a small house after the dust storm. The land around it is now barren and empty, dirt and dust everywhere. The images and information above are all accurate ways to show the life of migrant workers in the 1930's and what farming in California was like.

 

 

 

 


 

Citations

 

Okies, Dust Bowl Migrants from Oklahoma & the Plains." The Wessels Living History Farm, the Story of Agricultural Innovation. Web. 20 Aug. 2011. <http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_06.html>.

 

"Farming In California" Image

"1930's South." Wikispaces.com. Web. 23 Aug. 2011. <http://206soph.wikispaces.com/1930%27s+South>.

 

"Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas" Image 

"The Dust Bowl." Www.weru.ksu.edu. Web. 23 Aug. 2011. <http://www.weru.ksu.edu/new_weru/multimedia/dustbowl/dustbowlpics.html>.

 

Lange, Dorothea. A Dust Bowl farm in the Texas Panhandle. N.d. JPEG file.

Brown, Patricia Leigh. "Oklahomans Try to Save Their California Culture." The
     New York Times 5 Feb. 2002: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 23 Aug. 2011.
     <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/05/us/
     oklahomans-try-to-save-their-california-culture.html?ref=greatdepression1930s>.

 

YouTube video:

"@fluffycottncandi". "1930s Immigration to California." YouTube.com. 22 May 2009. Web. 29 Aug. 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrY7c2zbUiQ&feature=related>.

 

 

Because the massive drought had encompassed the Great Plains, many farmers had no chance but to abandon the land they knew and move west, in hope of a better future.

You feel like that; you feel like letting   

your tires go flat, like letting the mice   

build a nest in your muffler, like being   

no more than a truck in the weeds,

clucking with chickens or sticky with honey   

or holding a skinny old man in your lap   

while he watches the road, waiting

for someone to wave to. You feel like

 

waving. You feel like stopping the car

and dancing around on the road. You wave   

instead and leave your hand out gliding   

larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

Ted Kooser, “So This Is Nebraska” from Sure Signs. Copyright © 1980 by Ted Kooser. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, www.upress.pitt.edu. Used by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.