Okies in California and the National Experience of the Great Depression

On the infamous “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929, Wall Street collapsed due to heavy trading prices on the New York Stock Exchange. President Hoover claimed the U.S. business was “on a sound and prosperous basis,” but panic set in. The collapse of the U.S. economy, which was the largest in the world, caused global shock. By 1931, the Great Depression affected not only the U.S., but the world. “By 1933, 30 million people in industrial nations were unemployed, five times the number of unemployed four years before” (Brinkley 651). During the Great Depression, unemployment rates were very high, incomes dramatically fell, and many businesses failed. Oklahoma took a hard hit in the 1930’s. On top of the stock market crash, in the early 1930’s, Oklahoma had severe droughts and heavy dust storms. Hoping for a better life in California, many “Okies,” people from Oklahoma, headed west to work as migrant fruit pickers. The film version of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the Taniguchi essay, and many other works describe the terrible disappointment the Okies found in California: unemployment, low wages, little hope, shanty-towns, and brutal working conditions. The Okies’ experience in California reflects the national experience of Americans during the Great Depression. Yet, the Okies’ experience in California differed from the national experience of Americans during the Great Depression. The combination of the similarities and differences between the Okies in California and the people of the United States represents the Great Depression.

During the Great Depression, many people who were unemployed were from urban cities and rural towns were on government relief.
“The typical unemployed urban worker on relief, Hopkins found was a white man, thirty-eight years of age, and head of the household...[H]e had been more often than not an unskilled or semi-skilled worker in the manufacturing or mechanical industries. He had some ten years’ experience at what he considered his usual occupation. He had not finished elementary school. He had been out of any kind of job lasting one month or more for two years, and had not been working at his usual occupation for two and half years” (Binder 174). Unlike the description above, the Joad family represented the unemployed workers from rural towns. These people were tenant farmers or sharecroppers, who lost their homes and were migrant workers, and lived in extended families. A combination of rural and urban people were no government relief.
Many people in the United States were tenant farmers or sharecroppers, before the Great Depression. After the Great Depression many of these tenant farmers or sharecroppers were forced of the land. Originally, the government under Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt responded to the Great Depression by raising interest rates, tax rates, and cutting farm acreage. “Farm income had declined sixty percent between 1929 and 1932. A third of all American farmers lost their land”(Brinkley 655). Many tenant farmers and sharecroppers were forced off their land due to land reduction. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the tenant farmers who lost their land. Although, many tenant farmers and sharecroppers lost their land, many Americans came from cities and towns. The Okies popular destinations in California were

“Los Angeles, which attracted almost 100,000 Okies between 1935 and 1940, with about a quarter as many going to the cities of San Francisco and San Diego. Of the two major destinations for agricultural workers, the San Joaquin Valley attracted 70,000 and the San Bernardino/Imperial Valley region 20,000 migrants” (Windschuttle).
The Joad family represents the 20,000 migrants who traveled to the San Bernardino/ Imperial Valley region, but Bakersfield and other regions in California. Massive unemployment caused people to migrate, during the Great Depression. Industrial Northeast and Midwest cities and rural areas suffered massive unemployment. Unemployment had a heavy toll on the elderly, young people, unskilled workers, uneducated people, rural Americans, African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, immigrants, and women, or anyone who was not a Caucasian male suffered. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the Caucasian Americans who came to California and worked as Migrant fruit pickers, a traditionally Hispanic job. Before the Great Depression, Asians, Hispanics, and African Americans could get employment in unskilled industries or the industrial or service industries. Before the Great Depression, women held jobs like salesclerk, stereographer, and other service positions. When the Great Depression hit, they often lost their jobs to Caucasian Americans needing a job. Unemployed Southwestern Caucasian Americans wanted the jobs held by minorities and women, which were formerly considered beneath them.
Northwestern cities like “Cleveland, Ohio, has an unemployment rate of fifty percent in 1932; Akron, sixty percent; Toledo, eighty percent” (Brikley 664). However, California had an unemployment rate of “twenty-six percent during 1932"(Brikley 664). The national rate overall seems less than individual cities. The national unemployment was high from 1932 through 1935, as this table shows.

Year |Unemployment rate|
1923-29|3.3|
1930|8.9|
1931|15.9|
1932|23.6|
1933|24.9|
1934|21.7|
1935|20.1|
1936|17|
1937|14.3|
1938|19|
1939|17.2|
1940|14.9|
1941|9.9|
1942|4.7|
Table 1: From Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Joad family in the Grapes of Wrath represent the unemployed workers during the 1930s. The people who lived in Oklahoma had an unemployment rate of thirty-five percent (Brikley 664). Seizing the opportunity of a new life, many people moved to California.

During the Great Depression, many people migrated to find work. After the Dust Bowl hit the Midwestern and Southern Plains (states like Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado) many people move to California seeking jobs and a better life. However, many Americans, African Americans in particular, moved to industrial cities, such as Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, Los Angles, and New York City during the Great Depression. In the earlier period of 1920s, quotas were set for immigrants from Europe and Asia, but the quotas were not applied to Mexicans. Because of the Great Depression, immigrants from other countries coming to the United States weren’t accepted; fewer people were allowed to enter the United States and immigration laws were tightened. Mexicans and Mexican Americans, were deported due to the massive unemployment of Caucasian Americans. “More than four hundred thousand Mexican Americans, may of them U.S. citizens, returned to Mexico in the 1930s”(Binder 174). If people didn’t immigrates or weren’t deported, many people were drifters, which is a homeless, jobless person who is continually moving from place to place. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the drifter Americans who fled to California looking for work.

During the Great Depression, many people were forced to live in extended families due to massive unemployment. Middle class and working class families found unemployment and reduction of wages, which forced them to live in extended families rather than nuclear families. Tom Joad, Old Tom Joad, Ma Joad, Al Joad , Grandpa Joad, Grandma Joad, Noah Joad, Uncle John, Winfield Joad, Ruthie Joad, Jim Casy, Rose of Sharon Rivers, and Connie Rivers all live together in an extend family. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the Americans who live in extended families. Although many Americans lived in extended families, others moved out of a family unit. Many unemployed men left their families, instead of going through a divorce, because it was simply too expensive. Connie Rivers left Tom Joad’s pregnant sister, Rose of Sharon Rivers, her musician husband. The Grapes of Wrath character Connie Rivers represents the unemployed men who left their families during the Great Depression.

Many people were forced to live in Hoovervilles or shanty towns, temporary homes of the unemployed and homeless, during the Great Depression. Many people lived in cardboard boxes, lived in tents, or built housed out of wood and scraps of metal. The Hoovervilles in California were “built of brush, rags, sacks, boxboard, odd bits of tin and galvanized iron, pieces of canvas, or whatever other material was at hand at time of construction”(Binder 182). In the Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family is forced to stay in a Hooverville, across the bridge from the San Bernardino county. The Hooverville is packed with hungry, starving people, and makeshift houses made of tents, which backs up into a garbage area. Although, not all Americans lived in Hoovervilles many Americans did. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the Americans who live in the Hoovervilles.
During the Great Depression, those who didn’t live in Hoovervilles lived in government housing that was responsible for the housing of migrant workers, homeless, and unemployed. During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, as known as the Public Works Administration (PWA). This federal agency supports the construction of public building projects, which helped solve the insufficient housing for the migrant workers, homeless, and unemployed. In The Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family migrates to government housing, called the Farmworkers' Wheat Patch Government Camp, which is run by the Department of Agriculture. The government housing, Number Four Sanitary Unit, which has clean housing, toilets, and is safer than shanty-towns. Although, not all Americans lived in government housing many Americans did. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the Americans who live in government housing. However majority of the people who were in government housing were African Americans. “Two million African Americans-half the total black population-were on sone form of relief by 1932”(Brinkley 655). Although, the Joads represent people who lived in government housing they weren’t the majority.

Many Americans lost everything in the Great Depression. Twelve million citizens are jobless by 1932, six hundred thousand homeowners lost their homes between 1930 and 1932, and seven billion dollars of depositors’ money was lost (Binder 172). Millions of people lost their homes and their life savings. The Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath represents the Americans who lost their homes and their money. The bank agents tell the tenants to leave the land, because the the tractor driver will knock the tenant farmer's house off its foundation, to create more acreage for crops. Majority of Americans didn’t lose their land like the Joads did, most simply lost their homes due to the inability to pay off the mortgage and the house is foreclosed. Foreclosure on defaulted home mortgages caused “one hundred and fifty thousand homeowners to lose their property in 1930, two hundred thousand in 1931, and two hundred and fifty thousand in 1932” (Binder 172).
During the Great Depression, many Americans were joining unions due to the unfair wage distribution. The Joad family witnesses the Keene Fruit Ranch, which is run by gun toting guards, who are stopping workers are on-strike who are attempting to organize a union. The fruit pickers' salaries are reduced by the employers from five cents to two and one-half cents, once the strike was over. Due to work force problems the government passed National Labor Relations Act of 1935. This act gave workers the right to join unions and deal with their employers in a civil way. Union membership rates were 1 in 8 workers in the early 1930s(BLS). The Joad family represented the unionless workers who suffered during the Great Depression.

Many Americans during the Great Depression valued prosperity and success. People in America believed that they could restore themselves to what they once had. Hope drove people and motivated people to work harder and achieve more. The Joad family didn’t find any hope in California, but like many other Americans a flyer drove them to California; it says, “Plenty of work in California. Eight hundred pickers wanted.” At the end of the movie, Ma Joad and Pa Joad discuss their life. Ma says “that's what makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an' they die an' their kids ain't no good, an' they die out. But we keep a-comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out. They can't lick us. And we'll go on forever, Pa... 'cause... we're the people.”Ma Joad shows the hope the Americans feel during the Great Depression and the belief that they could overcome this state and show the rich bankers that they are able to rise above them.
The Joad family and other characters in The Grapes of Wrath represented the unemployed workers from rural towns, they hope the people in the United States had, the Americans who lost their homes and their money, and the Americans who live in government housing. In addition, the Joad family and other characters in The Grapes of Wrath represented the Americans who live in extended families, Americans who live in the Hoovervilles, Americans who traveled to Calfornia, unemployed men who left their families, unionless workers, unemployed workers during the 1930s, migrant workers, and tenant farmers. However the Joad family does not represent the minorities, union workers, working women, and people who moved to urban areas. The Joad family and other characters in The Grapes of Wrath represent the American experience during the Great Depression, mostly, however there are some major differences as well.

Works Cited
« Brinkley, Alan. “Chapter 25: The Great Depression .” The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. 1993. 4th ed. Vols. 2: From 1865. New York: McGraw Hill, 2004. 648-675.
« The Grapes of Wrath. 1940. DVD. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation .
« Kennedy, David M., and Carey McWilliams. “Chapter 10: The Depression Years .” The Way We Lived: Essays and Documents in American Social History. By Fredreick M. Binder and David M. Reimers. 5th ed. Vols. 2: 1865-Present. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. 169-184.
« U.S. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics . “Compensation from before World War I through the Great Depression.” Compensation and Working Conditions Online. By Robert VanGiezen and Albert E. Schwenk. Compensation and Working Conditions. Feb. 2001. U.S. Department of Labor. 22 May 2007 . Form John T. Dunlop and Walter Galenson, eds., Labor in the Twentieth Century (New York, Academic Press, 1978), p. 27, 31. « Windschuttle, Keith. “Steinbeck’s myth of the Okies .” The New Criterion 20.10 (June 2002). 22 May 2007 .