The Great Depression
In October 1929 the stock market crashed, wiping out 40 percent of the paper values of common
stock. Business houses closed their doors, factories shut down and banks failed. Farm income fell some 50
percent. By 1932 approximately one out of every four Americans was unemployed. By 1933 millions of
Americans were out of work. Bread lines were a common sight in most cities. Hundreds of thousands
roamed the country in search of food, work and shelter. "Brother, can you spare a dime?" went the refrain
of a popular song. During the Great Depression, a seven-year drought, and dust storms caused many
farmers in the Great Plains states to leave their homes and journey to California in search of a better
life. Many of them became migrant farm workers.
Why did so many of the refugees pin their hopes for a better life on California? One reason was
that the state's mild climate allowed for a long growing season and a diversity of crops with staggered
planting and harvesting cycles. For people whose lives had revolved around farming, this seemed like an
ideal place to look for work. In addition, flyers advertising a need for farm workers in the Southwest were
distributed in areas hard hit by unemployment. Finally, the country's major east-west thoroughfare, U.S.
Highway 66 -- also known as "Route 66," "The Mother Road," "The Main Street of America," and "Will
Rogers Highway" -- abetted the westward flight of the migrants. A trip of such length was not undertaken
lightly in this pre-interstate era, and Highway 66 provided a direct route from the Dust Bowl region to an
area just south of the Central Valley of California.
As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath:
"And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada
and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry;
twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed
over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to
pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live.
Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land."
About the Author & Playwright – John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck (1902 – 1968) was one of the greatest social novelists in the history of the United
States. His work often dealt with rural poverty in the American West, more specifically, California, during
the years of The Great Depression. Born in the small agricultural town of Salinas, California, Steinbeck felt
a personal affiliation with the migrant workers and poor farmers who would come to populate his novels. In
fact, during his high school years, Steinbeck spent his vacations working on local farms and ranches.
Steinbeck, however, always planned to be a writer. He attended Stanford University, but did not
graduate. He later moved to New York, where he failed in his attempts to become a working freelance
writer. Upon returning to California, Steinbeck discovered his artistic calling: creating naturalistic and
socially aware novels that expressed and humanized the plight of rural California.
In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature. After his death, the New York Times
said of Steinbeck’s legacy: “…it lives on in the works of innumerable writers who learned from him how to
present the forgotten man unforgettably.”
What do you think this quote means?
The American Dream
According to you, what is the American Dream?
The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America which was
written in 1931. He states: "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better
and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a
difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have
grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of
social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they
are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous
circumstances of birth or position."
Some say, that the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity - that people
work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families - but have less
time to enjoy their prosperity. Others say that the American Dream is beyond the grasp of the working poor
who must work two jobs to insure their family’s survival. Yet others look toward a new American Dream
with less focus on financial gain and more emphasis on living a simple, fulfilling life.
For many victims of the Depression, the struggles of day-to-day life were almost too much to bear.
They needed something larger to turn to for inspiration. Many of these Americans turned their hopes and
faith towards The American Dream. The American Dream: the faith or belief that the United States holds
unlimited opportunity for anyone, regardless of background, race, religion, or economic status. The
American Dream suggests that anyone who is born in or comes to the United States has a chance to achieve
high levels of prosperity and happiness.
Each character in Of Mice and Men is driven by a very specific objective: something they
want, need or desire; something they work towards or strive for. These objectives are responsible for the
actions of the character. Everything a character does within the play can be traced back to his or her
objective. In Of Mice and Men, many of these objectives are directly connected to The American Dream.
George’s objective is to buy a house where he and Lennie can “live on the fat of the land.” He and
Lennie travel together and plan to save their money in order to buy the “little place with ten acres” that
George has heard is available. George knows that owning that land would give Lennie and him some
stability and security. In Act I Scene II, he talks about the benefits of working on their own land:
“Nobody could can us in the middle of a job…And when we put in a crop, why we’d be
there to take that crop up. We’d know what come of our planting…And it’d be our own.
And nobody could can us. If we don’t like a guy, we can say: ‘get to hell out,’ and by
God he’s got to do it.
Thomas Wolfe said, "…to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity ….the right to
live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make
him."
Is this your American Dream?
The Migrant Experience
A complex set of interacting forces both economic and ecological brought the migrant
workers documented in this ethnographic collection to California. Following World War
I, a recession led to a drop in the market price of farm crops and caused Great Plains
farmers to increase their productivity through mechanization and the cultivation of more
land. This increase in farming activity required an increase in spending that caused many
farmers to become financially overextended. The stock market crash in 1929 only served
to exacerbate this already tenuous economic situation. Many independent farmers lost
their farms when banks came to collect on their notes, while tenant farmers were turned
out when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders. The attempts of
these displaced agricultural workers to find other work were met with frustration due to a
30 percent unemployment rate.
At the same time, the increase in farming
activity placed greater strain on the land. As the
naturally occurring grasslands of the southern
Great Plains were replaced with cultivated
fields, the rich soil lost its ability to retain
moisture and nutrients and began to erode. Soil
conservation practices were not widely
employed by farmers during this era, so when a
seven-year drought began in 1931, followed by
the coming of dust storms in 1932, many of the
farms literally dried up and blew away creating
what became known as the "Dust Bowl." Driven Frank and Myra Pipkin being recorded by
by the Great Depression, drought, and dust
Charles L. Todd at Shafter FSA Camp,
storms, thousands of farmers packed up their
Shafter, California, 1941. Photo by Robert
Hemmig.
families and made the difficult journey to
California where they hoped to find work.
Along with their meager belongings, the Dust Bowl refugees brought with them their
inherited cultural expressions. It is this heritage that Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin
captured on their documentation expedition to migrant work camps and other sites
throughout California.
Why did so many of the refugees pin their hopes for a better life on California? One
reason was that the state's mild climate allowed for a long growing season and a diversity
of crops with staggered planting and harvesting cycles. For people whose lives had
revolved around farming, this seemed like an ideal place to look for work. Popular songs
and stories, circulating in oral tradition for decades (for more on this topic see "The
Recording of Folk Music in Northern California" by Sidney Robertson Cowell),
exaggerated these attributes, depicting California as a veritable promised land. In
addition, flyers advertising a need for farm workers in the Southwest were distributed in
areas hard hit by unemployment. An example of such a flyer, publicizing a need for
cotton pickers in Arizona, is contained in Charles Todd's scrapbook. Finally, the country's
major east-west thoroughfare, U.S. Highway 66 -- also known as "Route 66," "The
Mother Road," "The Main Street of America," and "Will Rogers Highway" -- abetted the
westward flight of the migrants. A trip of such length was not undertaken lightly in this
pre-interstate era, and Highway 66 provided a direct route from the Dust Bowl region to
an area just south of the Central Valley of California.
The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Its primary area of impact was on the
southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly effected, but nonetheless, the
drought, windblown dust and agricultural decline were no strangers to the north. In fact
the agricultural devastation helped to lengthen the Depression whose effects were felt
worldwide. The movement of people on the Plains was also profound.
The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America which
was written in 1931. He states: "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which
life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each
according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes
to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful
of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in
which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which
they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the
fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
In the United States’ Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers: "…held certain
truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit
of Happiness." Might this sentiment be considered the foundation of the American
Dream?
Were homesteaders who left the big cities of the east to find happiness and their piece of
land in the unknown wilderness pursuing these inalienable Rights? Were the immigrants
who came to the United States looking for their bit of life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness, their Dream? And what did the desire of the veteran of World War II - to settle
down, to have a home, a car and a family - tell us about this evolving Dream? Is the
American Dream attainable by all Americans? Would Martin Luther King feel his Dream
was attained? Did Malcolm X realize his Dream?