Literature and Drama
Benson, Jackson J. “An Afternoon and an Introduction.” Journal of Modern Literature 2(2): 194-210.
_____. “To Tom, Who Lived It: John Steinbeck and the Man from Weedpatch.” Journal of Modern
Literature 5(2) 1976 April: 151-210.
Benson contends that the background for much of Steinbeck’s depiction of migrant life in The Grapes
of Wrath, came not only from Collins’ camp reports, but also from the influence and friendship of Tom
Collins, to whom the second part of the novel is dedicated. Hired in 1935 by the Resettlement
Administration (later called the Farm Security Administration), Collins served as manager of the first
migrant camp program in California. By 1936, Collins’ contributions to the camp program were
becoming legend. When Steinbeck went to the Division of Information offices for help with a series of
articles on the migrants, he was directed to Tom Collins at the Weedpatch camp. Benson credits
Collins with the most important contribution to The Grapes of Wrath; that is, “the spirit at the heart of
the novel, rather than…the details and color of its surface.”
Fossey, W. Richard. “’Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues’: A Study of Oklahoma’s Cultural Identity During the
Great Depression.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 55(1) 1977: 12-33.
Grego, Peter. Dust Thou Art.
Original theatrical production based on the Archives' interviews. Written and directed by Peter Grego.
[for more information, contact: Christy Gavin, cgavin@csub.edu]
Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Howe, Nicholas. "Oklahoma Stories." Southwest Review 80 (1995): 207-29.
Stories about Oklahomans and the Dust Bowl migration.
Shindo, Charles J. Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination. Lawrence, Kansas: University
Press of Kansas, 1997.
Shindo shows how artists and reformers have dominated the public memory of the Dust Bowl
migration. His study is a fine example of the ways in which artists use “aesthetics and politics to
make a personal statement about the human condition.” book explores the impact of the Great
Depression on the lives of ordinary people in California through professional observers like economist
Paul Taylor, photographer Dorothea Lange, journalist Carey McWilliams, and novelist John Steinbeck.
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection
Online presentation of an ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of
migrant work camps in Central California in 1940 and 1941.
Photography
Buck, Claudia. “’Migrant Mother’: A Central Valley Legacy.” California Journal 30(6) June 1999: 3643.
Florence Thompson, photographer Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, was the icon for the plight of
California’s Central Valley migrant families who struggled to overcome the Dust Bowl and the
Depression. Hard work and family were her most enduring legacy that was passed down to her 10
children, 39 grandchildren, 74 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren. According to
Buck, Thompson symbolized the spirit of “American can-do-ism.”
Caldwell, Erskine and Margaret Bourke-White. You Have Seen Their Faces. NY: Modern Age Books,
1937.
Collins, Thomas A. “From Bringin’ in the Sheaves.” Journal of Modern Literature 1976: 211-32.
Culley, John J. and Peter Peterson. “Hard Times on the High Plains: FSA Photography During the
1930s.” Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 1979 52: 15-37.
Photography by Roy Emerson Stryker for the Resettlement Association (renamed the Farm Security
Administration in 1937) within the Department of the Interior. As a record of their financial assistance
during the 1930s, Stryker documented rural poverty for the regional FSA office in Amarillo, Texas.
Curtis, James C. "Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, and the Culture of the Great Depression."
Winterthur Portfolio 21, no. 1 (Spring 1986): 1-20.
Explores the creation and symbolism of Lange's celebrated 1936 photograph within the context of her
professional work, her often tumultuous life, and the sensibilities of the Depression-era American
public. The photograph, although produced during an unplanned shoot, was itself not a spontaneous
snapshot, as is often believed, but one of a series of photographs of Florence Thompson chosen and to
some extent manipulated -- Lange intentionally omitted Thompson's name, husband, and teenaged
daughter -- to maximize sympathy for migrant life with the public.
Curtis, James. Mind's Eye, Mind's Truth: FSA Photography Reconsidered. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University, 1989.
Ganzel, Bill. Dust Bowl Descent. Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1984.
Bill Ganzel returns to Dust Bowl scenes made famous by the Farm Security Administration
photographers Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein.
Gelber, Steven M. “The Eye of the Beholder: Images of California by Dorothea Lange and Russell
Lee.” California History 64(4) 1985: 264-71.
An important visual contrast in the photographs of Lange and Lee that document California life during
the Great Depression.
Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Argues that migration from Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas to California was not limited to
the 1930s but had been occuring since the 1910s and lasted into the 1960s, that not all of them were
poor sharecroppers, and that the employment opportunities presented to them by the state's
emerging aerospace industry let many escape farming but did little to attenuate their identity as a
group, which could be succinctly described as populist yet conservative in politics, evangelically
religious, and fiercely self-conscious, especially through country music.
Hurley, F. Jack. Portrait of a Decade: Roy Stryker and the Development of Documentary Photography
in the Thirties. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University, 1972.
Lange, Dorothea. “The Assignment I’ll Never Forget.” Popular Photography 46(2) February 1960: 423.
Contains Lange’s account of her assignment to photograph starving pea pickers for the California State
Relief Bureau in 1936.
_____. and Paul S. Taylor. American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. New York: Reynal &
Hitchcock, 1939.
Loftis, Anne. Witnesses to the Struggle: Imaging the 1930s California Labor Movement. Reno:
University of Nevada Press, 1998.
Analyzes a substantial array of primary and secondary sources to show how "professional observers"
such as Dorothea Lange and John Steinbeck used their craft to elevate the condition of the exploited
and oppressed in California during the Great Depression to a national audience, sometimes for
ideological reasons, and how their efforts added or subtracted from the aims of radical labor
organizers within California.
Reuss, Richard A. "Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition." 173-303.
Surveys Guthrie's life and work, paying particular attention to how he came to prominence through his
connection with Leftist intellectuals, the rough and spontaneous nature of his work, and his protean
nature within the context of folk music, especially in light of his innovation and the fluidity of what
constitutes folk music.
Shindo, Charles J. Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination. Lawrence, Kansas: University
Press of Kansas, 1997.
Shindo shows how artists and reformers have dominated the public memory of the Dust Bowl
migration. His study is a fine example of the ways in which artists use “aesthetics and politics to
make a personal statement about the human condition.” book explores the impact of the Great
Depression on the lives of ordinary people in California through professional observers like economist
Paul Taylor, photographer Dorothea Lange, journalist Carey McWilliams, and novelist John Steinbeck.
Weiss, Margaret R. Ben Shahn, Photographer: An Album from the Thirties. New York: Da Capo, 1973.
Wolfenstein, Judith. "Okay Okie." Westways 71(7) 1979: 33-5.
Two short articles by Woody Guthrie on his observations of two famous California landmarks:
"Hollywood" and "Hollerwood Bolevard" written for the Hollywood Tribune in 1939.
United States. Library of Congress. Prints & Photographs Division. "Dorothea Lange's "Migrant
Mother." 2005. (www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/128_migm.html) See also Barbara Natanson's web
site: "Exploring Contexts: Migrant Mother."
(memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awpnp6/migrant_mother.html)
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection
Online presentation of an ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of
migrant work camps in Central California in 1940 and 1941.
Music
Fossey, W. Richard. “’Talkin’ Dust Bowl Blues’: A Study of Oklahoma’s Cultural Identity During the
Great Depression.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 55(1) 1977: 12-33.
Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Griffis, Ken. “Story and Discography of Beverly Hill Billies.” JEMF Quarterly 16(56) 1980: 2-17.
Heyman, Therese Thau. Celebrating A Collection: The Work of Dorothea Lange. Oakland, Calif.:
Oakland Museum, 1978.
Selected pages from Heyman’s ninety-seven page book. Includes introductory statements by Daniel
Dixon, Joyce Minick and Therese Heyman.
Menig, Harry. “Woody Guthrie: The Oklahoma Years, 1912-1929.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 53(2)
1975: 239-65.
Popular Depression era folksinger Woody Guthrie grew up in Okemah, Oklahoma, an oil boom town,
which had a lasting effect on his life and music. Guthrie’s strong family ties and his small town
upbringing made him conscious of the rights of the common man. During the Dust Bowl period and
the Depression, his ballad style represents a national voice for the dispossessed in their search for
self-respect.
“Okie and Arkie Festival Music and Dances of Migratory Workers in California.” New York
Times September 21, 1941: ??.
Stryker, Roy Emerson and Nancy Wood. In This Proud Land: America1935-1943 As Seen in the FSA
Photographs. Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1973.
Tribe, Ivan M. “The Hillbilly Versus the City: Urban Image of Country Music.” John Edwards Memorial
Foundation Quarterly June 10, 1974: 41-51.
Study reviews general historical attitudes toward the American city. Discusses common theme widely
utilized in novels and ballads characterizing the city as a place where young and innocent country
youth are led astray and corrupted.
Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection
Online presentation of an ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of
migrant work camps in Central California in 1940 and 1941.
Weiss, Margaret R. Ben Shahn, Photographer: An Album from the Thirties. New York: Da Capo, 1973.