Written during the Great Depression, this article outlines the poor lot of the California migratory workers of the time -formerly known as “Okies”:
“The other half of California’s 200,000 migratory workers are farmers who trekked from the dust bowl area; they found work on farms, but not farming; it’s seasonal piecework, like in a mill. Each Oklahoma nomad dreams of a cottage and a cow, but he’s just sitting on a barbed wire fence. With the publicity over, the government has forgotten the dust bowl refugees. At Depression depth, a man might make $8 a week; now, $5 is lucky. They are the bitterest folk in America; blood may flow…”
Click here if you would like to read a 1940 article about the the finest movie to ever document the flight of the Okies: “The Grapes of Wrath”.
CLICK HERE to read additional primary source articles about the Great Depression…
CLICK HERE to read about the women and children who were on public relief during the Great Depression.
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
Click here to read about the manner in which the Hoover administration addressed the Great Depression.
From Amazon:
Right Out of California: The 1930s and the Big Business Roots of Modern Conservatism
– the return journey ten years later:
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