History Of Okies

Chapter 21- Owners/Okies

The Okies were refugee farm families from the Southern Plains. These people migrated to California in the 1930s to escape the tragedies of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. The people came from several states, mostly from Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico but especially parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Many Okies, the families from Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, were not leaving because of the Dust Bowl; instead they left because of the farming economy during the 1920s. The prices of goods plummeted drastically, causing the farmers to expand and grow more crops, leading to the farmers being submerged in more debt than usual. Many of these families had traveled and lived in horrible conditions for many years looking for jobs.

This famous Great Depression picture is called the Toll of Uncertainty. This woman and her family were pea pickers in California. This woman was a mother of seven children. This photo was taken by Dorothea Lange. Lange took most of her photos for the U.S. Farm Security Administration (FSA). The FSA investigated the living conditions of farm workers and their families in some of the Western states, such as California. Most of the people, like this family, had come west to escape the Dust Bowl. I chose this picture

Thirteen years ago, he got married to his wife, and they have been traveling with their growing family ever since. This picture is untitled, and no date is noted. The photographer of this picture is the famous Dorothea Lange. Lange does an amazing job in this picture at showing how bad the living conditions were for migrants. That is why I chose this picture. You can see the truck, in the background, which this growing family has been living in for the past 13 years. Many families, just like this one, had been living in the same conditions because of the Great Depression and the Dust