LEADER 05340nam 2200721 a 450 001 9910818273503321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-292-79525-4 024 7 $a10.7560/714458 035 $a(CKB)1000000000472939 035 $a(OCoLC)463173712 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10245783 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000214712 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11218234 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000214712 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10167760 035 $a(PQKB)10907476 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3443296 035 $a(OCoLC)864852038 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse2307 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3443296 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10245783 035 $a(DE-B1597)586898 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780292795259 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000472939 100 $a20060830d2007 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aOn the dirty plate trail $eremembering the Dust Bowl refugee camps /$ftexts by Sanora Babb ; photographs by Dorothy Babb ; edited with introduction and commentaries by Douglas Wixson 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aAustin $cUniversity of Texas Press$d2007 215 $a1 online resource (209 p.) 225 1 $aHarry Ransom Humanities Research Center imprint series 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-292-71445-9 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $tFrontmatter -- $tContents -- $tList of illustrations -- $tMigrant farmer -- $tPreface -- $tAcknowledgments -- $tIntroduction: The Babb Sisters -- $t1 The dirty plate trail: Workers of the Western Valleys -- $t2 Field notes -- $t3 Reportage -- $t4 Dust bowl tales -- $t5 The dust bowl as site of memory -- $t6 Epilogue: Letters from the Fields -- $tNotes -- $tBibliography -- $tIndex 330 $a"The 1930's exodus of "Okies" dispossessed by repeated droughts and failed crop prices was a relatively brief interlude in the history of migrant agricultural labor. Yet it attracted wide attention through the publication of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the images of Farm Security Administration photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein. Ironically, their work risked sublimating the subjects-real people and actual experience-into aesthetic artifacts, icons of suffering, deprivation, and despair. Working for the Farm Security Administration in California's migrant labor camps in 1938-39, Sanora Babb, a young journalist and short story writer, together with her sister Dorothy, a gifted amateur photographer, entered the intimacy of the dispossessed farmers' lives as insiders, evidenced in the immediacy and accuracy of their writings and photos. Born in Oklahoma and raised on a dryland farm, the Babb sisters had unparalleled access to the day-by-day harsh reality of field labor and family life. This book presents a vivid, firsthand account of the Dust Bowl refugees, the migrant labor camps, and the growth of labor activism among Anglo and Mexican farm workers in California's agricultural valleys linked by the "Dirty Plate Trail" (Highway 99). It draws upon the detailed field notes that Sanora Babb wrote while in the camps, as well as on published articles and short stories about the migrant workers and an excerpt from her Dust Bowl novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. Like Sanora's writing, Dorothy's photos reveal an unmediated, personal encounter with the migrants, portraying the social and emotional realities of their actual living and working conditions, together with their efforts to organize and to seek temporary recreation. An authority in working-class literature and history, volume editor Douglas Wixson places the Babb sisters' work in relevant historical and social-political contexts, examining their role in reconfiguring the Dust Bowl exodus as a site of memory in the national consciousness. Focusing on the material conditions of everyday existence among the Dust Bowl refugees, the words and images of these two perceptive young women clearly show that, contrary to stereotype, the "Okies" were a widely diverse people, including not only Steinbeck's sharecropper "Joads" but also literate, independent farmers who, in the democracy of the FSA camps, found effective ways to rebuild lives and create communities."--Publisher description. 410 0$aHarry Ransom Humanities Research Center imprint series. 606 $aMigrant labor$zUnited States$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aMigrant agricultural laborers$zUnited States$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aLabor camps$zUnited States$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aDust Bowl Era, 1931-1939 606 $aDust storms$zGreat Plains$xHistory$y20th century 615 0$aMigrant labor$xHistory 615 0$aMigrant agricultural laborers$xHistory 615 0$aLabor camps$xHistory 615 0$aDust Bowl Era, 1931-1939. 615 0$aDust storms$xHistory 676 $a331.5/440979409043 700 $aBabb$b Sanora$01593088 701 $aBabb$b Dorothy$f1909-$01593089 701 $aWixson$b Douglas C$01593090 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910818273503321 996 $aOn the dirty plate trail$93913037 997 $aUNINA