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 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."

Dorothea Lange’s images

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  1 st NFL football draft  Babe Ruth hits 714 th and last homerun  Gene Sarazen wins the 2 nd Masters golf tournament with a double eagle on hole 15  1 st major league baseball games played at night  3 rd 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

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 ormer 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 

Other images from 1935

From om 19 1934 34 Mon ontg tgom omer ery y War ard d Cat atal alog og

More Catalog Pictures

Read the Fine Print!  Order form from 1934 Montgomery Ward Catalog.  If order is over $100, both husband and wife must sign.

CLIP FROM THE 1937 “THE AWFUL TRUTH” http://www.youtube.com/embed/ww72BH6Mifg

The “Dust Bowl” was not just an Oklahoma Event

There is a unique connection between California and Oklahoma

An estima mated ed 2,000,000 0 people e regularly rode the ra rails duri ring the 1930s includin ding g Riding the Rails as many as 8,000 women. n.

Oklahoma’s Population Growth since 1900 4,000,000 3,500,000 Accordin Ac ing to the Census, s, Oklahoma ahoma lost t 59,606 in the 1930s s and 3,000,000 another her 103,183 in the 1940s 2,500,000 3,751,351 3,450,654 2,000,000 3,145,585 3,025,290 2,559,229 2,396,040 2,336,434 2,328,284 2,233,251 1,500,000 2,028,283 1,657,155 1,000,000 500,000 0 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010

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 ounding states es moved west, t, mostly tly to Calif ifor ornia 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 ole Depress essio ion exper erienc ience. It's fa fascinati inating for historia ians s to think abou out t this, because se so much of what t we think that migratio ation wa was s all  abou bout t is wrong ong, 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 otograph ographs, 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 ound d the so-calle alled d Dust Bowl wl Migrat atio ion, , and we remem member er it, and histor orian 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.

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 ot 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 on 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 on of great misery, when there wa was certainly ly difficulty lty, , and there were people le who suffered tremend ndou ously ly, but the majority' y's story is much more positive.