tough Okie farmers In the West there was panic when the migrants multiplied on the highways. Men of property were terrfied for their property. Men who had never been hungery. Men who had never wanted anything very much saw the flare of want in the eyes of the migrants. And the men of the towns and the soft suburban country gathered to defend themselves; and they reassured thenselves that they were good and the invaders bad, as a man must do before he fights. They said, These goddammed Okies are thieves. They'll steal anything. They've got no sense of property rights.

dust storm seen from Mainstreet And the latter was true,for can a man without property know the ache of ownership? And the defending people said, They bring disease, the're filthy. We can't have them in the schools. The're strangers. How'd you like to have your sister go out with one of'em?

The local people whipped themselves into a mold of cruelty. Then they formed units, squads,, and armed them -- armed them with clubs, with gas,with guns. We own the country. We can't let these Okies get out of hand.

--John Stienbeck,"THE GRAPES OF WRATH"--(1939)

migrant caravan i930's on U.S.66 I ain't got no home, I'm just a-roamin' 'round, Just a wandrin' worker, I go from town to town. And the police make it hard wherever I may go And I ain't got no home in this world anymore. My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this road, A hot and dusty road that a million feet have trod; Rich man took my home and drove me from my door And I ain't got no home in this world anymore. Was a-farmin' on the shares, and always I was poor; My crops I lay into the banker's store. My wife took down and died upon the cabin floor, And I ain't got no home in this world anymore. Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see This world is such a great and a funny place to be; Oh, the gamblin' man is rich an' the workin' man is poor, And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

-- WOODY GUTHRIE --

sign-cotton pickers wanter Okie couple in old car

In cotton picking season of 1947 and 1948 I lived in a cotton camp just like the one below. A water spigot in front of about ever fifth cabin and an outhouse behind every fifth cabin. Most cotton camps were very large with several rows totaling one hundred or more cabins.

The camp was located about three miles west of Frindley Corner, Arizona. I was nine years old and attended the fourth grade in Eloy, Arizona.

cotton camp shacks
okie family inside shack