Book Review

Book Review - On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps

Dust. Dust that was so thick it chocked whole herds of livestock to death. Dust that was so strong it destroyed engines on anything that they could still afford to keep running. In terms of environmental hazards in American history, very few can be looked at with a greater effect on an entire region of the country than the dust bowl. I read the book On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps, because of a personal interest in American history, and an event that I really knew very little about. What I found was this decade of drought, dust, and mass immigration isn’t as simple as the hazard itself. In this review, I will discuss the environmental facts about the dust bowl, the immigration by those affected, the treatment of those affected, and their new lifestyles. This is a book I enjoyed reading very much, and I feel it does an excellent job of taking this famous hazard and showing the overall effect it produced.

I’m fairly certain the majority of Americans could tell you what the dust bowl was. It pretty much says it right in the name. However, few, including myself before I read this book, could probably tell you the time period and overall severity of the events that occurred. The dust bowl wasn’t just a week, month, or year of hazard, it was a decade. Think about that, a ten year period, the 1930’s, that completely took over multiple states. In 1934 alone, there were 58 straight days of 100+ temperatures during the summer in Oklahoma, and rainfall was less than half the normal amount (47). This is a common story also in Northern Texas, Southern Kansas, and Southeast Colorado. These regions surrounded the one state, Oklahoma, hit hardest by the dust bowl. This is the reason why the 350,000 immigrants from these states affected between 1935-1940 were referred to as “Okies” (12). Another interesting fact the book brings up is why were these people attempting to live and farm in a region not necessarily known for its fertile soil or farming industry all together? The answer is that in the early 1900’s, new dry farming technologies encouraged the settlement of these areas. Not only was the land much cheaper than the more fertile Midwest, but it was still a relatively new frontier full of opportunity. Unfortunately the dry farming technologies only worked for so long, and the dust bowl led to many farms being completely abandoned.

            It’s pretty clear why so many farmers left during the dust bowl, but why so many tradesmen, teachers, lawyers, and small business owners? Not only were the early 30’s a time of environmental disaster in the region, the nation as a whole was suffering through the greatest economic depression it’s ever seen. The United States as a whole was struggling mightily, and then throw on top of that the dust bowl in the southwest, and mass immigration was almost inevitable. The dust bowl caused the largest internal migration within a five-year period in American history (16). Nearly all went to California, and as previously stated, these people weren’t just farmers, but extremely skilled tradesmen and business owners. As stated on page 12, “The Dust Bowl exodus quickly became a symbol of all that went wrong in the Great Depression.” The Dust Bowl is a prime example of the trickledown effect that occurs in a depression. Even wealthy business owners and teachers are affected, because businesses are no good with broke customers, and teachers have nobody to educate if children are working for income or families simply leave looking for work. I had a common misconception before reading this book that the only people really affected were farmers. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as the numbers clearly show. As Americans, it would be expected that other Americans could migrate to different parts of the country without any problems. That was not the case with the “Okies.”

                

             There are a few examples in American history that come to mind when Americans are persecuted by other Americans. There’s the civil rights movement, Vietnam vets coming home, and probably a few other cases that I’m just not familiar with. Well after reading this book, the migration due to the dust bowl belongs on that list. Refugees were stigmatized as outsiders even though they looked like locals, spoke the same language, and shared the same nationality and background (149). There’s a specific passage on page 60 that states: “Small-town residents, noting the rise in criminal behavior, attributed it to the Okies or their influence.” While at first glance this may seem true because of the many poor Okies looking for work, let us not forget the time period. Many were looking for work. America was in the Great Depression. To say that an increase in crime was a direct reflection to the Okies would be ignoring the fact that crime was on a rise all over.  The poor times also reflects why many immigrants were persecuted when trying to enroll their children in school and in health facilities. There wasn’t enough money to go around for the current townspeople in California, throw in this massive new migration, and persecution was inevitable. Lastly, on page 64 there’s a great description of the hardship Okies found when actually finding work. Farm recruiters would go from town to town advertising massive farms in need of laborers paying a high wage. Workers were told they needed 1,000 workers, and they would spend the last pennies they had to make it to the farm only to realize the farm really only needed 300 workers. People would accept whatever wage they could get at that point, considering they had given everything just to get there. While the dust bowl doesn’t come up at first when thinking about persecution against fellow Americans, the previous examples from the text make it pretty clear that’s exactly what was going on. This also directly reflected the living conditions of the Okies.

               

             As can be expected after discussing persecution and the overall poverty experienced by American immigrants to California, living conditions were difficult for Okies. There were three different types of camps that uprooted Okies could be found in: US government camps, grower camps and squatter camps (93). US government camps were simply government camps formed after agents saw not only how poor the living conditions of these migrants was, but also their place in society in regards to their treatment. Grower camps were communities that generally consisted of a few small tents that farm owners would build to house their workers. In return for these shacks, owners could pay their workers lower wages. Lastly, the squatter camps were made up by the thousands of Okies looking for work or constantly on the move from farm to farm. Many times, these weren’t camps at all, but simply families sleeping in roadside ditches. With all this being said, Okie communities did make the best of their situation. Community halls, laundry rooms, and newsletters were all parts of both government and grower camps (26). Unfortunately the occasional cases of camp moral couldn’t overcome the natural health issues like measles, bed bugs, and overall malnutrition (74). As if the loss of jobs and homes, along with their treatment in their new societies weren’t enough, living conditions added another blow to the effect the dust bowl had on the Okies.

                

           I feel it’s generally known that the dust bowl was caused by an environmental hazard. However, the longevity, and overall effect of that hazard, is less known. The book On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps looks into this hazard from a human impact viewpoint that is essential to understanding not only the power of environmental hazards, but the vast impact they can have on society. From a simplistic view it just looks like a bunch of farmers who lost their farms. Through this books and an overall better understanding of the dust bowl, the reader recognizes that that loss of a farm leads to mass migrations of entire towns, and translates into an overall demographic of people in American history called the Okies that very few recognize. All this is a result of the environmental hazard known as the dust bowl. Who knew a little dust could have such an impact?