August 25, 2003
"Okies"
"Okies", I understand, were migrants from Oklahoma to California during the dust bowl days in the 1930s. Basically, midwestern farmers overworked the land -- removed too much of the natural grass cover -- which was fine as long as they had good rain. They had lots of rain for about 10 years or so, and then the drought hit. There was nothing to hold the dry soil down, and the wind literally blew it away. Which gave rise to a lot of apocalyptic feelings on the part of the poor farmers. Many of them left their valleys of sorrow for the "promised land" of California -- hence John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath , a movie by the same title, and Woody Guthrie's song about Tom Joad, and Bruce Springsteen's song about Woody Guthrie's song about the movie about John Steinbeck's book. Think I got all that right.
For obvious reasons, Californians were not thrilled about an influx of impoverished job seekers. So they called 'em "okies", I think in a similar spirit to today's "honkey" or "cracker".
Anyway, I have a long-held fascination with the dust bowl period and the plight of midwestern farmers in general. So I wrote some poems about it. I'm going to post some of them here, in a bit.
Also, the Library of Congress has a great collection called Voices of the Dust Bowl.
you need more pictures to make it more interresting because their are people like me who are just looking pictures for projects
thank you for your time
Posted by: Lilly Holton at April 28, 2004 08:14 PMOddly enough, having been born and raised in California I just found out that both sets of my grandparents were children of the dust bowl. Both of their families came west in the mid 1930's and ended up in the same California valley. I now live in Steinbeck's Salinas (Grapes of Wrath) and have visited the house that one set of Great grandparents moved into upon their arrival to this California coast. The home is right here in the Salinas Valley.
Posted by: Jaime Scheid at March 19, 2004 10:51 PMthough i lived with abe for 3 years, i never really thought about the fact that we are both okies. abe in name only, of course. i was born there and lived there a whole 6 months.
my grandparents actually made the trek East from california during the war. kind of reverse okies, i guess.
Posted by: levy at August 28, 2003 05:07 PMI was always very fond of "Mr. Dunn Disowns His Daughter," myself.
Posted by: mesh at August 26, 2003 04:03 PMMy ancestors on the Maphet side were OK "sooners", although they didn't bail out. :) There's still a big clan of them over in Oklahoma, from what I understand.
Posted by: Maphet at August 26, 2003 09:25 AM