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RETURN FROM WRATH The Great Depression was filled with iconic images - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
RETURN FROM WRATH The Great Depression was filled with iconic images - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Myths and Misconceptions about The Great Depression RETURN FROM WRATH The Great Depression was filled with iconic images John hn Steinb inbeck ck and Doroth thea Lange ge created ed many y of these se iconi nic c images es John
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John hn Steinb inbeck ck and Doroth thea Lange ge created ed many y of these se iconi nic c images es
John Steinbeck’s Grapes
es of Wrath th
The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939 and won the annual National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. The novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant framers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other Okies, they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
Dorothea Lange’s photography
With the onset of the Great Depression, Lange turned her camera lens to the
- street. Her studies of unemployed and homeless people captured the attention of
local photographers and led to her employment with the federal Resettlement
- Administration. From 1935 to 1939, Dorothea Lange's work brought the plight of the
poor and forgotten — particularly sharecroppers, displaced farm families, and migrant workers — to public attention. Distributed free to newspapers across the country, her poignant images became icons of the era. Lange's best-known picture is titled "Migrant Mother."
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Dorothea Lange’s images
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Other Things Did Happen in 1935
The Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl were initiated Bob Hope started his career in radio Monopoly board game goes on sale 1st NFL football draft Babe Ruth hits 714th and last homerun Gene Sarazen wins the 2nd Masters golf tournament
with a double eagle on hole 15
1st major league baseball games played at night 3rd All Star baseball game played 18th PGA Championship is won by Johnny Revolta at
Twi win Hills s Co Countr try y Cl Club in Oklaho ahoma ma Ci City ty
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TOP MOVIES OF 1935
Top Ha Hat
The Bride of Franken enst stei ein
The 39 Steps
Mutin iny y on the Bounty ty
A Night t at the Opera
David d Copperfie ield d
Triumph ph of the Will
The Infor
- rmer
mer
Les Misérable ables
Capta tain in Blood d
Alice e Ad Adams s
A Tale of Two Cities es
The Ghost t Goes West
Anna Kar Karenina
A Midsumm ummer er Night's t's Dream
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Other images from 1935
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From
- m 19
1934 34 Mon
- ntg
tgom
- mer
ery y War ard d Cat atal alog
- g
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More Catalog Pictures
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Read the Fine Print!
Order form
from 1934 Montgomery Ward Catalog.
If order is over
$100, both husband and wife must sign.
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CLIP FROM THE 1937 “THE AWFUL TRUTH”
http://www.youtube.com/embed/ww72BH6Mifg
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The “Dust Bowl” was not just an Oklahoma Event
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There is a unique connection between California and Oklahoma
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Riding the Rails
An estima mated ed 2,000,000 0 people e regularly rode the ra rails duri ring the 1930s includin ding g as many as 8,000 women. n.
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Oklahoma’s Population Growth since 1900
1,657,155 2,028,283 2,396,040 2,336,434 2,233,251 2,328,284 2,559,229 3,025,290 3,145,585 3,450,654 3,751,351 500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 3,000,000 3,500,000 4,000,000 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Ac Accordin ing to the Census, s, Oklahoma ahoma lost t 59,606 in the 1930s s and another her 103,183 in the 1940s
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Excerpts from an interview with James Gregory Associate Professor of History University of Washington
The 1930's was a time when fewer people traveled and fewer people moved than at any point in the twentieth century. But one of the excep eption tions to that wa was the migrat ratio ion out of the southern hern plains area ea that wa was s called lled the Dust Bowl l Migratio ation: : 300,000 or 400,000 people le from m Oklahoma ahoma and surroundi
- unding states
es moved west, t, mostly tly to Calif ifor
- rnia
ia, but also Arizona, some to Oregon, Colorado. And this was associated with the drought, with declining agricultural conditions.
It was an exceptional experience, because the 1930's was a very tough time to move. People move when they can be sure that they're going to be safe in a new place. That was not at all the case in the 1930's. Most people stayed close to home with family, friends, support systems. But this was the one distinctive mass movement in that particular decade, and it's been memorialized ever since; used as sort t of a symbol bol for the whole
- le Depress
essio ion exper erienc ience.
It's fa fascinati inating for historia ians s to think abou
- ut
t this, because se so much of what t we think that migratio ation wa was s all abou bout t is wrong
- ng, starting with the name. The whole concept of the Dust Bowl Migration is a wonderful
- misnomer. Most of the people had nothing to do with the Dust Bowl region. Most really weren't victims of the
drought, either. A lot of them weren't even farmers. The kinds of associations that come with that migration are pretty misleading, but it's because of that misleading myth, if you will, and all of its misleading imagery that we remember it so much. It's a wonderful example of, kind of, false advertising in history. A great at name, me, some me wo wonde derful l phot
- tograph
- graphs,
s, a terrif ific ic novel, el, The Grape pes s of Wrath th, , have e just lifted ed that even ent out of the mundan dane e exper erience iences s of the twentie tieth h century and creat eated ed this wo wonde derfu ful l lore e aroun
- und
d the so-calle alled d Dust Bowl wl Migrat atio ion, , and we remem member er it, and histor
- rian
ians s use it, and film documen mentar tary produ ducers wa want t to talk abou bout t it, and ever ery time the Depress essio ion comes mes up, the Dust Bowl wl Migratio ation is part of it.
Whereas all the other migrations, the many, many more millions of people who have moved through the twentieth century, this great century of mass movement, those are forgotten. And this one, because se, partly ly, , of that wo wonder derful ful name, e, that wo wonde derful ful confusion fusion, , that one is remem embe bere red d and celeb lebra rated. ed.
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Excerpts from an interview with James Gregory Associate Professor of History University of Washington
Steinbeck's story is a wonderful portrait of a s single family, and some other families probably lived experiences that were reasonably close. I It's not
- t a go
good portrait it of the 300,00 000 0 to 400,00 000 0 people le who are normall lly y associated d with that Dust Bowl Migration
- n term. The varieties of people who came
from Oklahoma and Texas and Arkansas, the places they went, their experiences, were much richer, much more varied; for the most part, a lot more positive than what Steinbeck
- portrayed. So, like all novels that attempt to personalize and locate in a single family or a single
individual, experience, it's wrong, because it can't cover the generality. And in this case, the generality y is, for the most part, qu quite different than that experience ence.
Most of the people who left Oklahoma didn't go to cotton camps and starve through winters. More went to Los Angeles, than into the rural valleys that are pictured in Steinbeck's book. Quite a few did go into the rural valleys. Some didn't have a miserable time, and most did survive. They met the challenges of finding new jobs, often in farm work, for a time, but pretty quickly moving out of farm
- work. The levels of desperation, the starvation evoked by that book and by some of the journalism is
pretty inaccurate. The Dust Bowl Migration is remembered as a time of great suffering, as a migration that, in some ways, evokes images of other refugee migrations in other countries, and that's pretty
- inaccurate. The white Oklahomans and Texans and Arkansans didn't have the same casualty rate, for
example, as Mexicans today coming across the border. More people die trying to get into the United States through the southern border in the 1990s and in the year 2000 than were dying from the Dust Bowl Migration of the 1930s. The imagery is misleading ding. . It's much too negative. . It creates an imp mpre ress ssion
- n of great misery, when there wa
was certainly ly difficulty lty, , and there were people le who suffered tremend ndou
- usly
ly, but the majority' y's story is much more positive.
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One ot
- ther wonderful
ul part of the myth of the Dust Bowl Migration
- n is its association with covered
wagons, westward trails and pioneer experiences, and if you just stop for a second and realize, this is the 1930s, and nearly everybody had an automobile. And a highway system, a good national highway system had been built in the 1920's. This wasn't covered wagons. This wa was two days' camp mping ng along g the wa way or stoppi ping ng at m mot
- tels
s in Arizona
- na. It's two days from Oklahoma to California, and for many
people, not unpleasant days at all, any more than it is today. For those who ran out of money and had to panhandle or find gas, of course, there could be difficulties, and some people picked cotton on a route that led from Texas through Arizona cotton fields and into California cotton fields and made it a longer trek. But for most people ple, , it's just a dr drive, and it wa was a n nice drive to the coast. And most of the peopl ple e who came to Californi rnia a also were going back and forth constant antly
- ly. It wasn't a one-way
- migration. It's not at all like crossing the Atlantic, the great immigrant waves of the nineteenth
- century. Very difficult to return. But to go back to Oklahoma is just two days in the opposite
direction, and people went back and forth all the time.
If we're going to look at what statistical data, the reports and the census and the other information we have to really look at this migration show, there are surprises everywhere. Only about half of the peopl ple e who came from the western, south region n were farmers. The rest came from cities and big towns and small towns. About a third went into the valleys of California that are associated with The Grapes of Wrath, two-thirds into the cities, especially Los Angeles, where they found industrial jobs and some of them were white-collar workers and found white collar and professional jobs. So the essential spread - what was coming to California was a cross-section of Oklahoma society. It wasn't just dirt-poor, burnout farmers. And their experiences nces, , for the most part, were successf sful ul.
Excerpts from an interview with James Gregory Associate Professor of History University of Washington
AUTHOR OF American Exodus: the Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California
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RETURN FROM WRATH
About an Oil family that
migrated to California in the 1920s and them comes back to western Oklahoma in 1935
Plot is based on a
famous literary work, but not The Grapes s of
- f Wrath
th!
Mostly fiction, but some
fact
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CUT THROAT GAP MASSACRE
The Cutthr throat at Gap Massacre cre occurred in 1833 near Medicine Park, Oklahoma. A group
- f Osage warriors attacked a Kiowa camp and
brutally slaughtered women, children and
- elderly. Kiowa warriors had gone buffalo
hunting leaving the camp unguarded when the attackers came. Approximately 150 Kiowas were killed. When the warriors returned to the camp, they found decapitated and mutilated bodies with the victims’ heads placed in cooking pots. The Osage also took their sacred Tai-me medicine bundle used in the performance of the Sun Dance[ and a pair
- f siblings, a boy named Thunder and a girl
named White Weasel captive.
From Wikipedia
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BABBS SWITCH TRAGEDY
A few days before December 24, 1924, the Babbs Switch School was freshly painted in preparation for the Christmas program. Repairs had been made to the building following a windstorm in May, 1922. Heavy wire netting had been placed
- ver all the windows and the screens were bolted securely with heavy bolts to the
sills to prevent vandalism and breakage. The night was bitterly cold and a light snow had fallen. About 200 men, women, and children crowded into the 26’ x 36’ building. They stood against the walls and in the aisles. The program concluded with Santa presenting gifts from the glistening Christmas Tree illuminated lighted candles. As Santa distributed the gifts, he accidently pulled a limb down, which released and swung back knocking a candle against the cotton and tinsel decorations. The decorations caught fire and spread quickly to the tree. Willing hands rushed forward in the effort to smother the blaze while only a few started for the only door. The tree was turned over in the effort to extinguish the fire, causing the turpentine soaked walls to ignite . Terror spread quickly. In two minutes, the entire room was on fire. People broke the windows trying to escape, but the heavy wire would not give. The door was jammed with people trying to get out; many were trampled to death before the flames reached them. Spectators witnessing the inferno said whole families died wrapped in each other’s arms. Car radiators had been drained to keep them from freezing. When those who were able to drive started for Hobart to get help, many forgot to put water back in the radiators, causing motors to overheat. When the first auto load of injured reached Hobart, a general call for aid was sounded and cars rushed to the school. In 45 minutes all the injured were returned to Hobart to receive emergency treatment. Every physician in Hobart responded to the call and worked all night. Stores were
- pened and cots were placed in the hospitals to take care of the those brought
- there. Arrangements were made with the Rock Island Railroad to send a special car
to Hobart to take the injured to University Hospital in Oklahoma City, staffed with nurses, but only one survivor was able to make the trip. Thirty-six perished in the tragedy.
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