![]() Texas-based Lee's work of chronicling the lives of Dust Bowl refugees would go on to inspire the genre of documentary photography.įor Lee, an important part of his work was to immortalize moments of happiness and beauty during the years of desolation in rural America, a strategy that offers readers today a one-of-a-kind view of the small joys that eased the pain of the Great Depression. The images reveal migrant farmers gathered for barbecue and pie, school children singing in an assembly, men sitting on the stoop of a 'juke joint' and boys enjoying a game of baseball. The stunning photographs, though grainy and aged, offer a unique insight into the camaraderie and community spirited that united migrants from 1935 to 1943. Rare images captured by Department of Agriculture photographer Russell Lee, Dorothea Lange, and Marion Post Wolcott document the raw moments of family life in the midst of scarcity, brought to life in color. Oklahoma dust bowl refugees.The Great Depression devastated that United States like never before, leaving the land arid and crumbling and families destitute and hungry.Ĭities in the south formed refuge camps for families fleeing the panic in their hometowns.ĭespite the poverty and scarcity, communities formed in the Dust Bowl states of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Kansas where migrants supported one another through the dire days.Family between Dallas and Austin, Texas.Squatters along highway near Bakersfield, California.Along the highway near Bakersfield, California.Tent camp of migrants north of Harlingen, Texas.Atmosphere shot of migrant camp, Weslaco, Texas.I'd Rather Not Be on Relief - Song Lyrics.Adobe farmhouse of rehabilitation client.Dust bowl farmer raising fence to keep it from being buried under drifting sand.The front excited dust storms, sent tumbleweeds rolling down the road. Soil blown by "dust bowl" winds piled up in large drifts near Liberal, Kansas phone confiscated by a big dummy of a sheriff after taking a picture with it in. ![]() To find additional documents from Loc.gov on this topic, use such key words as migrant workers, migrant camps, farm workers, dust bowl, and drought. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land." In all, 400,000 people left the Great Plains, victims of the combined action of severe drought and poor soil conservation practices. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless-restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do-to lift, to push, to pick, to cut-anything, any burden to bear, for food. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. In his 1939 book The Grapes of Wrath, author John Steinbeck described the flight of families from the Dust Bowl: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west-from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. With no chance of making a living, farm families abandoned their homes and land, fleeing westward to become migrant laborers. Nineteen states in the heartland of the United States became a vast dust bowl. In some places, the dust drifted like snow, covering farm buildings and houses. The sky could darken for days, and even well-sealed homes could have a thick layer of dust on the furniture. Winds whipped across the plains, raising billowing clouds of dust. With the onset of drought in 1930, the overfarmed and overgrazed land began to blow away. Among the natural elements, the strong winds of the region were particularly devastating. Gradually, the land was laid bare, and significant environmental damage began to occur. In the ranching regions, overgrazing also destroyed large areas of grassland. ![]() As the demand for wheat products grew, cattle grazing was reduced, and millions more acres were plowed and planted.ĭry land farming on the Great Plains led to the systematic destruction of the prairie grasses. The farmers plowed the prairie grasses and planted dry land wheat. ![]() Most of the settlers farmed their land or grazed cattle. Once a semi-arid grassland, the treeless plains became home to thousands of settlers when, in 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act. Of War Information Black-and-White Negativesīetween 19, the southwestern Great Plains region of the United States suffered a severe drought. ![]() The Dust Bowl Results of a Dust Storm, Oklahoma, 1936. Next Section President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal.Previous Section Art and Entertainment in the 1930s and 1940s. ![]()
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