A Bolder Response Than White House Vegetable Gardens – Voices From The Dust Bowl

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Bill Wolfe

 First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt Visits Migrant Worker Camps in Wake of Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”

Eleanor Roosevelt visits migrant farmworkers at FSA Farmersville Camp in California (1940) (original caption)

[Intro: in case its not obvious, the context for this post was all the fawning press coverage of Michelle Obama’s White House vegetable garden. In historical context, the Obama’s are lame.]

Photos below are from the Library of Congress’ ethnographic collections – for the entire collection, check out:

Here’s a taste:

Location: Colonial Park near 150th Street, New York City

Date: June 6, 1939

Interviewer: Ralph Ellison

Interview Excerpt: “Do rich people and poor people have anything in common?”

Listen to the man’s response

“God made all this, and he made it for everybody. And he made it equal. This breeze and these green leaves out here is for everybody. The same sun’s shining down on everybody. This breeze comes from God and man cain’t do nothing about it. I breath the same air old man Ford an old man Rockerfeller breath. They got all the money an I ain’t got nothing, but they got to breath the same air I do.”

Migrant worker Camp Council meeting – This is what democracy looks like (Farmersville, California – May 1939) (my caption)

 

El Rio, Cal. – FSA Camp for Mexican fruit pickers. Front gate – 1941 (original caption)

 

group of children sitting on wooden bench – El Rio, Cal. 1940 (original caption)

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