Common Grackle – Fair Park, Dallas, Texas, March 18, 2007
1000 words #6
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Farmers Desert Dust Bowl Lands
Settlement Problem Faces Officials
Washington, April 8, 1937 (AP)—Federal relief leaders said today one of their big unsolved problems was caring for between 100,000 and 150,000 farmers and their families who left the Great Plains drought area for a new start in the Far West.
The resettlement administration and state relief leaders in California, Washington, Oregon and Utah contend the migration is a national problem calling for federal action.
A federal report described the mass movement from the region of drought and dust storms as “probably the last great migration of settlers to the Far West.”
If searing heat and rainless weather should ruin crops on the Great Plains again this year, officials predicted the migration will reach larger proportions.
Resettlement officials estimated that more than half of the families who moved to the northwest were virtually destitute, about one-fourth had saved a few hundred dollars, while a few had salvaged enough to finance purchase of a new farm.
Lack of residence requirements made federal and state relief aid difficult, the survey said, and many families spent the winter In shacks, hovels, deserted tourist camps and tenth.
“Living conditions in many of these shack towns were a disgrace to civilization.” the survey said.
Squatter camp on county road near Calipatria. Forty families from the dust bowl have been camped here for months on the edge of the pea fields. There has been no work because the crop was frozen. March 1937; photo by Dorothea Lange; Library of Congress image.
Part of the daily motorcade of drought refugees. The Montana-North Dakota state line. July 1936; photo by Arthur Rothstein; Library of Congress image.
Oklahomans bound for Oregon along a highway in California. February 1937; photo by Dorothea Lange; Library of Congress image.
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Five unidentified prisoners of war in Confederate uniforms in front of their barracks at Camp Douglas Prison, Chicago, Illinois.
photograph : quarter-plate tintype, hand-colored ; 11.9 x 9.4 cm (case)
Donated by Tom Liljenquist; 2011
Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs; Ambrotype/Tintype photograph filing series; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Record page for image is here.
Cross posted from my Civil War Blog, Daily Observations from The Civil War.
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Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
- fade correction,
- color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
- selected spot removal.
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Beggars, Alexandria, Egypt – Taken some time in 1900
Lantern slide; T. H. McAllister, Manufacturing Optician. 49 Nassau Street, New York.
Brooklyn Museum (image on flickr)
Aborigine’s house, Wilcannia, NSW, circa 1936 – photographer Reverend Edward (“Ted”) Alexander Roberts
From the collection of the State Library of New South Wales (image on flickr)
Hand colored lantern slide – Erwin Hinckley Barbour, J.L. Wortman, and James William Gidley on a “paleontological expedition for the Division of Vertebrate Mammals.” (From lantern slides found in the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology Records.) Smithsonian Institution (image on flickr)
The references for this image give a date range of 1900-1935. Gidley died in 1831 at the age of 55. None of these men look that old. Barbour was ten years older than Gidley. In 1908, Wortman went to Brownsville, Texas, opened a drug store, and spent the rest of his life as a pharmacist. My guess is that this image is from some time in the late 19th century.
Photos have 
no known copyright restrictions.
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Truth is relative…
June 16, 2013
in commentary, photography, weather
I’ve had a Twitter account for a long time now, but only just recently started using it. I only follow a few select people – and I have no desire to get into tweeting. I follow these individuals for the information and links that they share, for the most part, not their tweet messages. This one, though, resonated. I thought I’d share it in a motivational poster kind of format.
Image credit:
Some rights reserved by VinothChandar
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