Transcript Dust Bowl - Yourhomework

Dust Bowl
Agricultural practices and years of sustained
drought;
farmers kept plowing and planting and nothing
would grow
Ground cover that held the soil was gone. Plains
winds – dust drift like snow
1930’s
Lasted almost ten years
People left Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico,
Nevada, and Arkansas
Car, caravans, homeless, hungry
20,000 – 200,000 people
MIGRANT WORKERS
Displaced agricultural workers
30% unemployment rate
Traveling to California to find work
California – mild climate; diversity of crops; staggered planting and
harvesting cycles; “promised land”
Southwest in need for farm workers
Country’s major east-west thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 66 – “Route 66”;
“the Mother Road,” “The Main Street of America,” “Will Roger’ Highway”
“Okies” – 20% from Oklahoma
Newly arriving migrants too much for California; labor pool was scarce;
entire family working could not support themselves on low wages. Camps
along irrigation ditches in the farmers’ fields; fostered poor sanitary
conditions; public health problem
To maintain steady income, followed the harvest around the state.
Harvesting cotton, lemons, oranges, peas, etc. agricultural centers, Oxnard
to Yuba City; most in San Joaquin Valley
Migrant Farmworkers
John Steinbeck
Born in Salinas, California, 1902
Characters are immigrants from Mexico or other parts of the United
States who went to California looking for work or a better life.
Of Mice and Men; farmland of the Salinas Valley; ranch in the story is near
Soledad, south-east of Salinas on the Salinas River; Weed is nearby.
1880’s – 1930’s – numerous men traveled the countryside harvesting
wheat. Earned $2.50 - $3.00 a day, plus food and very basic boarding.
Agencies set up under the New Deal, by Pres. FDR, sent farm workers to
where they were needed. George and Lennie get their work cards from
Murray and Ready’s, one of these agencies.
The American Dream
• Since the first settlers in the 17th century,
immigrants dreamed of a better life in
America. They arrived to escape
persecution, or poverty, to get rich in the
goldfields.
• What many found were nightmares;
slavery, Civil War; slums; corruption
• Dream ended with Wall Street crash 1929
• Great Depression
Dream for the Future
• Throughout the reading of this book, you
will be reflecting on the dreams that you
have for the future. Are you encouraged
by others to strive to see your dreams
become a reality, or is there always
someone trying to destroy that dream, as
in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns, where
the farmer destroys the home of the
mouse albeit accidentally.
PREJUDICE
• Definition
• an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or
without knowledge, thought, or reason.
• any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or
unfavorable.
• unreasonable feelings, opinions, or attitudes, esp. of a
hostile nature, regarding a racial, religious, or national
group.
• to affect with a prejudice, either favorable or unfavorable:
His honesty and sincerity prejudiced us in his favor.
RACISM
• belief or doctrine that inherent differences
among the various human races determine
cultural or individual achievement, usually
involving the idea that one's own race is superior
and has the right to rule others.
• a policy, system of government, etc., based
upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
• hatred or intolerance of another race or other
races.