Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry Exhibit Script Panel 1 Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry
The son of a farmer in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, 1936
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The son of a farmer in the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, 1936 Arthur Rothstein, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division This boy’s family stayed on their farm through the years of dust, as did millions of other farmers and ranchers in the Dust Bowl region. (Below) A farmer removes dust drifts from a highway, 1936 Arthur Rothstein, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division People who stayed on their farms and in their homes during the years of drought and dust pitched in to improve conditions for everyone. This man used his team of horses to help unblock the roads near Guymon, Oklahoma, so that cars and other vehicles could get through. The sharing of food, clothing, and chores was characteristic of a communal effort to save a way of life during the Dust Bowl years. Panel 15 Difficult Decisions People of the Plains faced difficult personal questions during the Dust Bowl years. Many believed that the prosperity of the 1920s came from hard work—farmers had faith that they controlled their own destiny. When the weather turned hostile, farmers wondered what they had done to deserve such bad fortune. Caroline Henderson wrote that many people believed “the drought is a direct punishment for our sins.” Some people left their farms and moved to the nearest urban center, while others packed their meager belongings and went west, especially to California. Migrant families struggled in the West as they moved throughout the region to find work. Many spent their nights in automobile camps near the agricultural fields where they earned what they could. Many more farmers stayed. These families faced a series of difficult decisions about whether they could survive on their farms. Historians estimate that seventy to eighty percent of people in the region of the Dust Bowl remained on their land. Some did not have enough money to leave. Lula Wood, who grew up on an Oklahoma farm, told interviewers: “When you’ve got a bunch of kids, where do you go? There’s no money or anything to go on, so we were too poor to leave.” Other farmers had the option of moving but did not want to leave their land. Gerald Dixon lived on a farm in Oklahoma during the 1930s and thanked his parents for staying. “A lot of people left, but my folks decided to stay and I’m glad they stayed.” A homeless family in California, 1939 Dorothea Lange, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division A Dust Bowl refugee family and their pets walk along U.S. Highway 99, near Brawley, Imperial County, California. Homeless and without a car, they have walked from Phoenix, Arizona, where they picked cotton for awhile, and are bound for San Diego to find work and government relief. Many migrants were forced to move frequently in order to maintain a steady income. They followed harvests for different crops around the state of California.
Around eighty families fleeing the Dust Bowl lived temporarily at this automobile camp near Calipatra, California. They paid fifty cents a week to stay and were able to work at low-paying agricultural jobs nearby to sustain themselves. Many auto camps sprang up along Highway 99, which stretched almost the entire length of the Central Valley of California, because there were agricultural jobs available nearby.
Near Tracy, California, a family of five who left the drought area seven months ago is stranded on U.S. Highway 99 with car trouble. The car roof and a small trailer hold all of their possessions. They have no money, and one of their children is ill. Such stories were replicated thousands of times as people sought to start a new life in a different area of the country. An Oklahoma family in a California migrant labor camp, 1939 Dorothea Lange, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division This Oklahoma family of 13 is living in a tent in a Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant labor camp in Brawley, California, during the pea harvest. The harvest provided work for the father, eldest son and eldest daughter, while the mother took care of the other nine children. Interviewed by the photographer, the father said, “I’ve made my mistakes and now we can’t go back. I’ve got nothing to farm with.” The FSA camps, administered by a small government staff, provided a safe temporary living space for refugees from the Dust Bowl. “When you’ve got a bunch of kids, where do you go? There’s no money or anything to go on, so we were too poor to leave.” —Lula Wood, Oklahoma farmer LISTEN TO Lula Wood discuss being too poor to leave. http://www.library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/wood.mp3 SCAN THIS QR CODE
Alexandre Hogue was a young, Missouri-born, Texas-raised artist who was just making a name for himself in the art world when the Dust Bowl ravaged the Plains states. Having worked on a farm in Texas, he had seen firsthand the devastation created by the drought. Hogue created several paintings with Dust Bowl themes. In this one, angular fence posts and spikes of barbed wire are the foreground for blood-red dust that obstructs the sun. Tire tracks run away from the farm, as though the family has just left. Sanora Babb, photographed in California, late 1930s Photographer unknown Courtesy of www.sanorababb.com Whose Names Are Unknown, by Sanora Babb University of Oklahoma Press, 2004 Courtesy of the University of Oklahoma Press Sanora Babb (1907–2005) was born in the Oklahoma Panhandle and grew up on the Colorado frontier. She wrote Whose Names Are Unknown based on notes she compiled while working with Dust Bowl migrant families in California’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) camps in the late 1930s. Her notes may have been shown to author John Steinbeck by FSA personnel. The novel is the story of the Dunne family as they struggle to survive in the Oklahoma Panhandle, flee to California, and face even worse circumstances as migrant workers. Babb received a contract with Random House for “this exceptionally fine” novel, but it was cancelled when John Steinbeck’s similarly themed Grapes of Wrath became a bestseller. Babb’s book remained shelved for 65 years, until 2004, the year before her death, when the University of Oklahoma Press published it to great critical acclaim. It was called “a long-forgotten masterpiece” and “an American classic.” Sand dunes on a farm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936 Arthur Rothstein, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Fresh out of Columbia University in his native New York City, Arthur Rothstein (1915–1985) began work as a photographer in 1936 for the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency that later became part of the Farm Security Administration (FSA). During his five years with the FSA, Rothstein took significant and iconic photographs of rural and small town America. His innovative compositions, many featuring dramatic lighting and unusual perspectives, made him one of the most renowned photojournalists of his generation. He later was director of photography for Look and Parade magazines. His most famous photograph appears on the first panel in this exhibition. Migrant grandmother and sick baby, Arizona, 1940 Dorothea Lange, photographer Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration Commissioned by the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) took masterful photographs of Dust Bowl migrant families that were works of art in themselves. They sensitively documented a massive exodus from drought and dust to hoped-for better lives in California and other places. Many of Lange’s photographs have become icons of this historical period. Their dynamic compositions and dramatic angles and lighting borrow techniques from the language of modernism in art. Woody Guthrie, 1943 Photograph by Al Aumuller Courtesy of Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. Woody Guthrie (1912–1967), a native Oklahoman, was a singer-songwriter and folk musician whose artistic legacy includes hundreds of songs, poems, paintings, and prose works. Many of his songs, such as “This Land Is Your Land,” have become staples of the canon of American music. Guthrie moved to Texas in 1931 and established a family there, but during the Dust Bowl years, he found it impossible to support them. Like hundreds of “Dust Bowl refugees,” Guthrie hitchhiked, rode trains, and walked to California, taking small jobs along the way. In exchange for room and board, he often played his guitar and sang traditional folk and blues songs, and songs he had written, including “Dust Bowl Troubadour” and other works about the drought. Alternative version of lyrics to “Dust Bowl Refugee” by Woody Guthrie, Los Angeles, California, February 12, 1939 © Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI) Courtesy of Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. Panel 17 Looking for Answers Farmers who stayed in the Plains during the Dust Bowl thought about the economics of agriculture and wondered what the government might do to help. Caroline Henderson’s letters sparkle with analysis about the economics of growing wheat. Henderson wrote that the “important point is not the market price of our products but their actual value in exchange for the things we need.” At one point, Henderson considered socialism as a possible remedy to her region’s problems, writing of “the merits of socialism as a method of distributing the wealth created by all working together.” Few people on the Plains followed Henderson in looking to socialism for answers. Marg Scruggs remembered trying to figure out how the market for wheat affected her farm. “One of the first things that happened, the price for farm products was terribly low, partly because of over-production.” These letters and memories point to the mental strength of those who lived through the Dust Bowl and also speak to the farmers’ concern about the economic system. Some farmers turned to the government for support. Soon farmers in the Plains would see a wide array of government programs aimed at their farms, and aimed at the dust. Dr. Tugwell (right) and farmer in Texas Panhandle, 1936 Arthur Rothstein, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Rexford Guy Tugwell (1891–1979) was an agricultural economist and the architect of many farm and social services programs developed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first administration. As undersecretary in the Department of Agriculture, Tugwell helped create the Agricultural Adjustment Administration to manage yields of key crops by providing subsidies for non-production. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Soil Conservation Service in 1933 and the Resettlement Administration in 1935, both of which benefited people severely affected by the Dust Bowl crisis. Tugwell made a number of visits to the Plains during this time to monitor the effects of new government programs on struggling farmers. Dust Bowl migrant camp council meeting, Farmersville, California, 1939 Dorothea Lange, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division The Farm Security Administration (FSA) opened the first federally operated camp for migrants from the Dust Bowl in 1937, in Arvin, California. The camps were intended to resolve poor sanitation and public health and child care problems among migrants, and to provide a safe place to live. Each camp had a small staff of administrators, but responsibility for daily activities and governance fell to the residents themselves through camp courts and camp councils, such as this council in the Farmersville FSA camp. Editorial cartoon about Dust Bowl farm relief measures, no date Morris (J.M.?) in the Hoboken Observer Courtesy of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library The need for farm relief in the Dust Bowl region was viewed with a degree of suspicion in some quarters, but in this editorial cartoon, the desperate farmer’s perspective was portrayed as “Sure, I’ll try anything once!” The Roosevelt Administration instituted a variety of measures to get farm families back on their feet as quickly as possible. Mass meeting poster, Burleigh County, North Dakota, 1937 Russell Lee, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Labor groups called for a community meeting in Bismarck, North Dakota, saying “Something must be done immediately to save mankind and beasts from real suffering” as a result of the drought. The organizers entreated, “This is your meeting, you are expected to be present with all your friends and neighbors.” Working together to share food, labor, and other necessities was the answer to immediate crises in many areas of the Dust Bowl.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected by a large majority in 1932, toured Dust Bowl states in 1936 to see firsthand how local and federal programs were aiding drought-stricken farmers. In his September 6, 1936, “Fireside Chat” radio broadcast, he recounted his western trip and spoke of seeing “fields of wheat blasted by heat,” and “brown pastures that would not support one cow.” But he cautioned, “I would not have you think for a single minute that there is permanent disaster in these drought regions” and promised help from the federal government. Panel 18 Government Programs State and federal programs to aid farmers in the Dust Bowl region increased in the late 1930s. The Drought Relief Service purchased cattle at risk of starvation, processed the cattle fit for consumption, and distributed the meat to needy families. The Farm Security Administration ran camps for migrant workers. The Soil Erosion Service, established in 1933, purchased land most susceptible to erosion and set it aside for what would eventually become part of the United States National Grasslands. The Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) of 1933 subsidized farmers for leaving some plots of land fallow in an effort to boost commodity prices. Farmers accepted government financial aid such as crop subsidies, but many people on the Plains had difficulty accepting food from the government. Marvin Carnagey remembered that his wife did not want to go to a state food bank in Oklahoma: “It embarrassed her to go, but she went, and she got a half a dozen grapefruit, and she said that it wasn’t worth the embarrassment.” Carnagey’s memory illustrates the crisis of identity for farmers on the Plains in the 1930s. Before the Dust Bowl many felt in control of their own destinies, and believed that hard work would bring independence and profits. The years of drought shattered their sense of control over the environment. An Oklahoma farmer pumps water to parched fields, 1936 Arthur Rothstein, photographer Courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division This farmer in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, is wetting his dry fields with water from a well. Because there is little surface water in the Great Plains that can be used for irrigation, farmers had to begin tapping the water held in aquifers underground. Even during the bleak Dust Bowl years, federal and local government agencies found ways to build irrigation systems, develop groundwater irrigation techniques, and provide education for farmers. “America Has Plenty of Food for Everyone” poster, 1936 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture Courtesy of Special Collections, National Agricultural Library To help the country recover from the Depression and the Dust Bowl, President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to boost the prices of farm commodities. He set up the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which paid farmers to reduce livestock numbers and not plant some of their land. This poster was designed to show the success of this AAA policy. Dust Bowl farmers were among the recipients of grants to limit wheat and cotton production.
This poster emphasized the importance of trees in preventing wind erosion, preserving moisture, and protecting crops. Thirty-seven days after he took office in March 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and ordered it to plant more than 200 million trees from the U.S. border with Canada to Abilene, Texas, to help keep topsoil in place. The CCC, known as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” also taught farmers techniques such as terracing to prevent wind erosion.
Mexican immigrants to the United States who owned small farms or worked picking crops were severely affected by the Depression and the Dust Bowl. Many of them left drought-ridden Texas and other areas of the southwest for California. The Farm Security Administration (FSA) sponsored migrant camps for Mexican immigrants, such as this one in El Rio, California. Panel 19 Studying the Dust Bowl Like Plains farmers and government experts in the 1930s, researchers today still seek to learn from the Dust Bowl. Studies by social and physical scientists have produced a broad array of scientific literature since the first wave of New Deal era explanations. Some scholars focus on the economic forces driving agriculture in the Plains during the period. Some examine the endurance, cooperation, and creative responses of local communities to the harsh conditions, including widespread irrigation that uses groundwater. Yet others emphasize the application of improved climate data and atmospheric models to enhance our understanding of the past and to predict future drought-based hazards. Although scholars continue to explore the Dust Bowl, the general public’s knowledge of the event has eroded. The Federal agencies that blossomed in the immediate wake of the Dust Bowl have helped wipe the dust from the public’s collective memory. Younger generations within the Dust Bowl region know little about what happened and why. Living in an area prone to recurrent drought and facing new environmental challenges, residents can draw on two strong traditions. Resilient communities provide a rich collective memory, while science offers strategies to live within the limits of the environment. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005 Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt To chronicle the events of the Dust Bowl, Timothy Egan, a former national correspondent for The New York Times, focuses on the personal stories of settlers who came to the Plains with energy and high hopes for the future, and then watched with growing despair as nature turned against them. The Worst Hard Time was awarded the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2006. Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, by Donald Worster Oxford University Press, 1979, 25th anniversary edition, 2004 Courtesy of Oxford University Press First published in 1979, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s helped to define the new field of environmental history. In a 25th anniversary edition, author Donald Worster, Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas, shares his more recent thoughts on the subject of the land and how humans interact with it, and reflects on the state of the Plains today and the threat of a new Dust Bowl.
Caroline Boa Henderson (1877–1966) and her husband lived on a farm in Eva, Oklahoma, before, during, and after the Dust Bowl years. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Henderson vividly recounted their experiences living on the Plains in letters to friends and family written between 1908 and 1966. Her letters, many of which were published in the Atlantic magazine in the 1930s in a column titled “Letters from the Dust Bowl,” are collected in this volume.
The thousands of people who rode out the Dust Bowl years in southwest Kansas are the focus of Rooted in Dust. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, professor and Chair of the Department of History at Iowa State University, examines the social impact of drought and depression, and illustrates how both town and farm families dealt with deprivation by finding odd jobs, working in government programs, or depending on federal and private assistance. On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps, by Sanora Babb, photographs by Dorothy Babb; edited by Douglas Wixson University of Texas Press, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Series, 2007 Courtesy of the University of Texas Press This book is a firsthand account of the migrations, immigrant camps, and labor organizing of displaced Plains farmers during the Dust Bowl period. It is based on the notes of Sanora Babb, who helped set up some of the camps and worked with migrant farm families. The “dirty plate trail” was the old U.S. Highway 99 in the Central Valley of California, where many migrant camps were located because of the agricultural jobs available nearby. High Plains/Ogallala aquifer, water level changes pre-development to 2011 Data courtesy United States Geological Survey; Map by Jess Porter, University of Arkansas at Little Rock The High Plains aquifer system, a major portion of which is also known as the Ogallala aquifer, has been the primary source of water for agriculture on the Great Plains in the decades following the Dust Bowl. As more farmers pump the underground water to the surface, however, withdrawal rates have exceeded natural replenishment rates. Thus, wells must now be drilled much deeper to reach the aquifer at many locations.
Dust Bowl can inform these discussions. Supercell thunderstorm, Oklahoma, June 3, 2008 Sean Waugh, photographer Courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Severe Storms Laboratory A towering cumulonimbus cloud is perched above a typical Great Plains landscape. Thunderstorms like this can be a blessing or a curse. Precious moisture sustains Plains’ crops, but the high winds, hail, and tornados that can be associated with these thunderstorms can destroy a planting season’s work in moments. Church of Christ sign, Boise City, Oklahoma, June 2013 Jess Porter, photographer, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Divine Providence is sought in times of drought. This sign, at a church in the westernmost county of the Oklahoma Panhandle, requests assistance from passersby. Center-pivot irrigation from the Ogallala/High Plains aquifer, Beaver County, Oklahoma, June 2013 Jess Porter, photographer, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Irrigated corn grows tall and contrasts sharply with the stubble of the recently harvested winter wheat. Stark contrasts in vegetation occur on the Plains as a result of irrigation from underground water. The Ogallala/High Plains aquifer has been utilized to provide a reliable source of water in the decades following the Dust Bowl. Water is being withdrawn from the aquifer at a much higher rate than it is being replenished. Agricultural fields and abandoned farmstead, eastern Montana, date unknown Terry Sohl, photographer Courtesy of United States Geological Survey The Great Plains region of the United States has experienced significant land-use change since European settlement, with vast swathes of grasslands converted to agricultural lands. Access to water, technological changes, a growing biofuels industry, fluctuating demands for agricultural products, and government policies have resulted in periodic historical shifts in land use in the region. Exhibition Credits Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry was developed by the American Library Association Public Programs Office in collaboration with the libraries of Oklahoma State University and Mount Holyoke College. The exhibition and tour were made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Exhibition curators: Jess C. Porter, Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Charles W. Romney, Assistant Professor of History, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Chester Design Associates, Chicago Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Directory: programming -> sites -> ala.org.programming -> files -> content content -> Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World Section One content -> Section 1 Cuban Giants season ticket, 1887 Courtesy of Larry Hogan Collection National Baseball Hall of Fame Library programming -> Abbsoft computers programming -> Programming in C: a tutorial programming -> Programming Languages and Learning Contributors programming -> First-generation programming language Download 166.54 Kb. Share with your friends:
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