By Nathan Hodges
As I sit – ever sedentary – hunched over my computer, my thoughts begin to wander from the task at hand. That task being the speculation of a metaphorical pile of documents, arranged as a cataloged list of interviews, organized succinctly on a web page alphabetized by last name, and glaring brightly at me. Screens, LCD or otherwise, have seemingly replaced books in many senses. Instead of tediously scrolling my eyes down fine print, I am scrolling a mouse down a PDF document. My tired eyes basking in the ambience of an endless backlit corridor. This is the life of an archive researcher of the 21st century, or rather a student of the archive, destined or doomed to utilize computational methods of investigation.
The archive in question is formally named “Dust, Drought, and Dreams Gone Dry: Oklahoma Women in the Dust Bowl Oral History Project,” and though my initial impressions were rather excitable, I soon came to dread its monotonous and repetitive presentation of information. The archive is formatted with little to offer but less to want for. Following a title and introduction page is a set of links guiding you through the archive. These include a more detailed background on the archive, an expansive bibliography of sources, a categorized list of interview participants, and the interviews themselves. It is likely much easier to navigate these webpages than a physical archive by any means, but far duller.
This archive, which I will refer to just as “the archive,” is focused on the opinions and observations of women during the time of the Dust Bowl. These women hail from all parts of the Great Plains and were largely children during the period of the Dust Bowl. As a whole, the archive is a set of forty-six interviews, each of which contains the responses of anywhere between one women to as many as five or six. All the interviews begin in the same manner: by having each women introduce themselves and where they’re from as well as their current age and when they were born. Proceeding from there, the participants discuss various elements from their childhood and eventually – with the guidance of the interviewers Steven Kite, Shelly Lemons, and Jennifer Paustenbaugh – center on the Dust Bowl itself.
A tragic period of American history, accounts of the Dust Bowl often describe tough times scarred with poverty and disarray. Known also as the “Dirty Thirties” for its culmination with the Great Depression, this time period began with severe drought in late 1930 and didn’t subside until the end of 1939 (Staff, 2009). The horrendous dust storms associated with the Dust Bowl such as that of the infamous “Black Sunday” were caused by – in addition to the lack of precipitation – poor land management practices and heavy winds that the Midwestern United States is known for. The fuel for these storms came directly from the farmers and settlers of the area. Sold on lies and false promises, thousands of homesteaders had migrated out west prior to the 1930’s to claim their 160 acres and stake out their family’s future (Parker, 2014). Driven by Manifest Destiny and a desire to persevere, these new settlers plowed up as much land as it took to get crops to grow in the poor soil of the area and soon became battered down by the ensuing drought and horrible weather.
During the “Dirty Thirties,” near 440,000 people migrated out of the Great Planes Region. Many heading west to California. The story of these migrants is forever encapsulated in John Steinbeck’s award winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, which is even a recommended resource by the curators of the archive. Whole families bundled up everything they had to make the pilgrimage out west, leaving behind their homesteads and land in hopes of a brighter future. What they found however tended to be much worse. These families – discriminatorily called “Okies” even if they weren’t from Oklahoma – were often forced to live in Shanty Towns working only when work was available, typically as cotton pickers or farm hands. Living conditions in these Shanty Towns was dreadful and multitudes of children and adults died due to starvation or common rampant diseases such as dysentery (Loh, 1992).
Though much of the history of the Dust Bowl, including John Steinbeck’s novel, focus on those who migrated west, the stories presented in the archive concentrate more on those who remained in the Plains region. This is for the reason that many who travelled to California or elsewhere subsequently stayed there long-term. Remaining long-term was such a prevalent trend that as of the 1990’s, nearly 1/8th of California’s then population of 30 million tied their ancestry back to Oklahoma (Loh, 1992). The perspectives’ of those in the archive however fixate on that of the daughters of farmers or small business owners and describe stories from a young girl’s point of view of what life during the Dust Bowl was really like on the Great Plains.
These narratives are typically composed in the same fashion repeatedly. All of the information in the archive is presented in interview format and while a select few of the interviews are available in both a transcribed format and digital audio format, I was never able to utilize the digital audio format for unknown reasons. The repetitive nature of the archive occurs in the questions posed to the groups of elderly women that generally begin with something as vague as “What was your childhood like?” and progress from there with a loose facilitation of conversation. The loose-natured conversations hone in with basic topical questions about their parents’ occupations, their education, socio-economic standing before and during the Dust Bowl, things they did for fun as children, and what the dust storms were like on a day-by-day basis.
This method of investigation put forth by the archive creators appears completely adequate and provided ample information. As I progressed through more of these interviews I began to realize that, not only were the questions understandably being reused, but the answers were often the same as well. These women usually seemed to be from small towns, and as such, were often acquainted or related to each other, thus causing many answers to remain the same time and time again. It was common at the time for families and groups of people to band together for survival. This corroborated the answers, further proving their validity, as I was encountering similar responses throughout. Oftentimes, these women – getting slightly caught up in the moment of remembrance – would make aside references to each other or things of the past that had little relevance to the topic at hand forcing the interviewers to redirect the conversation when it would drift too far off course.
I was rather surprised by all of this in the beginning because when I first approached the archive, given its description as wanting to provide the point of view of “mothers and wives.” I had expected a much more comprehensive review of information that didn’t have so much focus on the local drug store or swimming hole, which was where these children most commonly spent their free time. I had approached the archive expecting to find adult feeling and emotions, initially wanting to compare those to the emotions or reactions of people facing adversity in the present day in the form of hurricanes, tornadoes, or our very own Great Recession. Instead, what I encountered was a collection of memoirs of children who admitted to themselves now that they really didn’t understand the magnitude of what was happening at the time.
For these women, the Dust Bowl and Great Depression was just life. Not having enough experience to compare it to anything else, they just grew up when times were tough and weather was poor. Stories of helping their mothers can fresh produce while their brothers tended the farm run rampant and the primary emotions related to the dust storms is that of primal misunderstanding and understandable fright from those who were especially young during the time. The differences between the information provided and the information I had predicted to find actually allowed me to widen my purpose of investigating the archive and consider a new angle with which to proceed. This oddly unforeseeable lack of adult perspective had hampered my ability to draw parallels between the two time periods. I was actually surprised that I hadn’t realized this ahead of time. Given what I had discovered, I decided to shift my focus to something that is capable of using the archive interviews more effectively.
Excitingly different from what I had planned to encounter, the archives do contain ample asides that I can utilize to tie in to my new focus, which lies in a discussion on how events of the Dust Bowl have influenced the environmental policy of today. I will also investigate how current circumstances of the Midwest are trending towards a new era of dust storms and their comparative effects on modern day civilization. These tid-bits of information are present everywhere in the interviews and can sometimes make the information a puzzle to decipher, as the conversations occurring between multiple women would seem to derail. One of the more shocking things I read happened to be a story about someone’s horse. The horse in question was described to be extremely black with no hint of color anywhere. When the interviewers asked what the horse’s name had been a prompt reply of “Nigga’” was given which then sparked laughter among the group. I was surprised by this because previous comments from this person led me to believe that they perhaps hadn’t been entirely in favor of the long past civil rights movements. It was a sort of culture shock at just how different some of the attitudes of the past could be and how they still pertained to the present.
My focus on these seemingly irrelevant pieces of information lies in their ability to translate to a discussion on the long term effects of the Dust Bowl in terms of the world’s current environmental state. These children remember very well what it was like to grow up during drought and tough farming conditions and have described the difficulties of doing such. This experience is very useful in comparing situations during the Dust Bowl to modern day. One such example is an account of how the “government man” came to shoot one of the family’s cows due to overgrazing cattle populations. Problems of poor land conservation and livestock grazing of the Dust Bowl have directly influenced modern day policy in such areas. No less than two weeks after the harrowing events of “Black Sunday” – which sent dust as far as the White House itself – was new legislation put in place to begin healing the effects of the Dust Bowl. This legislation was known as the Soil Conservation Service and is still in effect today, operating under the name National Resources Conservation Service.
Many such cases exist of Dust Bowl and Great Depression inspired programs influencing the American world today. In my research I hope to utilize these first-hand accounts provided by this archive to further an explanation of the political and social consequences of the Dust Bowl.
Works Cited
Lemons, S., Kite, S., & Paustenbaugh, J. (2000-2002). Dust, Drought and Dreams Gone Dry: Oklahoma Women and the Dust Bowl Oral History Project. Retrieved from OKstate Library: https://library.okstate.edu/oralhistory/digital/dustbowl/
Loh, J. (1992, October 18). Okies – They Sank Roots and Changed the Heart of California… Retrieved October 16, 2017, from Los Angeles Times: http://articles.latimes.com/1992-10-18/local/me-622_1_san-joaquin-valley
Parker, L. (2014, May 17). Parched: A New Dust Bowl Forms in the Heartland. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from National Geographic: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/05/140516-dust-bowl-drought-oklahoma-panhandle-food/
Staff, H. (2009). Dust Bowl. Retrieved October 15, 2017, from History.com: http://www.history.com/topics/dust-bowl
Fall 2017
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