Pictured above is Dr. Henry Sigerist, a Swiss historian and medical sociologist. He is the author of the attached 1939 article which served as his report on the government-sponsored medical outreach program for “California’s Grapes of Wrath migrants”:
“The counties of San Joaquin Valley have well organized health departments… [Migrants] are entitled to drugs, special diets, eyeglasses and appliances if authorized by the medical director. Since many patients are in need not so much of medicines than of food, the Association may pay a medical grocery bill just as it pays the druggist. It also provides school lunches and nursery meals…. Great attention is given to children so that they may grow up as healthy individuals and 90 percent of the babies are born in hospitals.”
Click here to read about the other ways the Farm Security Administration aided migrant workers.
More on migrant laborers can be read here…
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