On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps

by Sanora Babb, Dorothy Babb (Photographer)

Runner-up, National Council on Public History Book Award, 2008 The 1930s exodus of "Okies" dispossessed by repeated droughts and failed crop prices was a relatively brief interlude in the history of migrant agricultural labor. Yet it attracted wide attention through the publication of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and the images of Farm Security Administration photographers such as Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothstein. Ironically, their work risked sublimating the subjects—real people and actual experience—into aesthetic artifacts, icons of suffering, deprivation, and despair. Working for the Farm Security Administration in California's migrant labor camps in 1938-39, Sanora Babb, a young journalist and short story writer, together with her sister Dorothy, a gifted amateur photographer, entered the intimacy of the dispossessed farmers' lives as insiders, evidenced in the immediacy and accuracy of their writings and photos. Born in Oklahoma and raised on a dryland farm, the Babb sisters had unparalleled access to the day-by-day harsh reality of field labor and family life. This book presents a vivid, firsthand account of the Dust Bowl refugees, the migrant labor camps, and the growth of labor activism among Anglo and Mexican farm workers in California's agricultural valleys linked by the "Dirty Plate Trail" (Highway 99). It draws upon the detailed field notes that Sanora Babb wrote while in the camps, as well as on published articles and short stories about the migrant workers and an excerpt from her Dust Bowl novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. Like Sanora's writing, Dorothy's photos reveal an unmediated, personal encounter with the migrants, portraying the social and emotional realities of their actual living and working conditions, together with their efforts to organize and to seek temporary recreation. An authority in working-class literature and history, volume editor Douglas Wixson places the Babb sisters' work in relevant historical and social-political contexts, examining their role in reconfiguring the Dust Bowl exodus as a site of memory in the national consciousness. Focusing on the material conditions of everyday existence among the Dust Bowl refugees, the words and images of these two perceptive young women clearly show that, contrary to stereotype, the "Okies" were a widely diverse people, including not only Steinbeck's sharecropper "Joads" but also literate, independent farmers who, in the democracy of the FSA camps, found effective ways to rebuild lives and create communities.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Memoir

184 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Sanora Babb was an American novelist, poet, and literary editor.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Topically, it was well written. However, it was much more non-fiction than I was expecting (my own fault). There are a few excerpts of her fiction work in the last quarter of the book. The remainder is comprised of her non-fiction essays, and contextual commentaries by the editor, Douglas Wixson.

The comparison to Steinbeck led me to assume this book would be a work of fiction. I did not enjoy reading her essays about the refugee crises, not because they were poorly written but because the information was so dire. I was hoping to learn more about this time-period in a "show, don't tell" story.

[Teresa Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This has to be one of the most depressing books I have ever (or skimmed) through. The photos are awesome and you can feel the souls of those poor individuals. It reads like a history book (non-fiction).

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I am intensively focused on the reading about the great plains in the US, the Douglas Wixson edition of Sanora Babbs field notes of her time in the 1930's talking with Okie refugees in Oklahoma is just a great read. At first Wixson's tone put me off, a bit too something high-brow but he really had done his homework and so I definitely appreciated his BRIEF discussion of Babbs in context with Cather and Sandoz. I am thankful to have this book - and would refer anyone who happens to read this to Babbs' novels - An Owl on Every Post or Whose Names are Unknown.

[Sara W · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this would mostly be Sanora Babb's writing, but a good chunk of it (I'd say well over half) was written by the editor. It seemed a little disorganized and was also a bit repetitive at times. It seemed like I read the same few quotes from Babb's several times at different points in the book because the editor was reusing those quotes to support whatever theme he was discussing at the time. It wasn't a bad book, but it wasn't what I was expecting. The short story by Babb towards the end was very good though.

[Karyn Buchanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a work of nonfiction that provides the context for how Sanora Babb worked for the FSA and with Tom Collin’s to help the refugees of the Dust Bowl. It is a short book, but a lengthy read. It also includes her sister Dorothy’s pictures. I gained a lot from reading this book.

[Mary Tuttle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sanora Babb's writing is stunning. However, the setting written by the scholar is less than stirring. A diamond set in mud.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderfully written as well as an insight