![]() Photo by Robert Hemmig.Īlthough the Dust Bowl included many Great Plains states, the migrants were generically known as "Okies," referring to the approximately 20 percent who were from Oklahoma. Myra Pipkin, age 46, holding grandchild, Shafter FSA Camp, Shafter, California, 1941. A trip of such length was not undertaken lightly in this pre-interstate era, and Highway 66 provided a direct route from the Dust Bowl region to an area just south of the Central Valley of California. Highway 66 - also known as "Route 66," "The Mother Road," "The Main Street of America," and "Will Rogers Highway" - abetted the westward flight of the migrants. Finally, the country's major east-west thoroughfare, U.S. An example of such a flyer, publicizing a need for cotton pickers in Arizona, is contained in Charles Todd's scrapbook. In addition, flyers advertising a need for farm workers in the Southwest were distributed in areas hard hit by unemployment. Popular songs and stories, circulating in oral tradition for decades (for more on this topic see " The Recording of Folk Music in Northern California" by Sidney Robertson Cowell), exaggerated these attributes, depicting California as a veritable promised land. For people whose lives had revolved around farming, this seemed like an ideal place to look for work. Why did so many of the refugees pin their hopes for a better life on California? One reason was that the state's mild climate allowed for a long growing season and a diversity of crops with staggered planting and harvesting cycles. Todd and Robert Sonkin captured on their documentation expedition to migrant work camps and other sites throughout California. Along with their meager belongings, the Dust Bowl refugees brought with them their inherited cultural expressions. Soil conservation practices were not widely employed by farmers during this era, so when a seven-year drought began in 1931, followed by the coming of dust storms in 1932, many of the farms literally dried up and blew away creating what became known as the "Dust Bowl." Driven by the Great Depression, drought, and dust storms, thousands of farmers packed up their families and made the difficult journey to California where they hoped to find work. As the naturally occurring grasslands of the southern Great Plains were replaced with cultivated fields, the rich soil lost its ability to retain moisture and nutrients and began to erode. Photo by Robert Hemmig.Īt the same time, the increase in farming activity placed greater strain on the land. Todd at Shafter FSA Camp, Shafter, California, 1941. Frank and Myra Pipkin being recorded by Charles L. ![]() The attempts of these displaced agricultural workers to find other work were met with frustration due to a 30 percent unemployment rate. Many independent farmers lost their farms when banks came to collect on their notes, while tenant farmers were turned out when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders. The stock market crash in 1929 only served to exacerbate this already tenuous economic situation. This increase in farming activity required an increase in spending that caused many farmers to become financially overextended. Following World War I, a recession led to a drop in the market price of farm crops and caused Great Plains farmers to increase their productivity through mechanization and the cultivation of more land. Listen to this page The Migrant ExperienceĪ complex set of interacting forces both economic and ecological brought the migrant workers documented in this ethnographic collection to California.
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