Harvest Gypsies Analysis

During the 1930’s thousands of Dust Bowl migrant workers made their way from the central plain into California seeking work. In their search for work and some form of income many of the migrants and their families ended up in Hoovervilles, which were makeshift roadside camps that were greatly impoverished. Steinbeck was able to travel through the labor camps and recorded the horrible living conditions of the migrant workers. The collection of these recordings was published as Harvest Gypsies. During the tours of the labor camps he saw the oppression of the workers first hand in addition to workers being demoralized by wealthy land owners. While recording the horrible conditions he witnesses he began to think up possible solutions for the workers

The article What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation, provides an insight on the effects of Harvest Gypsies’ publication. The article names the Dust Bowl era “the worst hard time.” This article has an emphasis on not only human hardships but also on how the dust bowl climate contributed to the era and the hardships associated with it. I found the connection between climate and migrant workers to be an interesting comparison. The article explains that during the worst years of the Great Depression, large areas of the North American Great Plains experienced severe, multi-year droughts that led to soil erosion, dust storms, farm abandonments, personal hardships, and distress migration on scales not previously seen. 1 The comparison allows people now to look back on the dust bowl and see how just one force, such as climate can go on to create mistreatment and an impoverished life for workers. Through the connection of this article in addition to Harvest Gypsies we can prevent such events noted from happening

From our textbook we are able to learn the base information of the depression and migrant workers. The document provides a deeper insight with first hand views on the mistreatment of workers by wealthy landowners. First hand photographs allow a real view of how the impoverished migrant camps actually looked. The photos, along with Steinbeck's firsthand observations and genuine concern for the human suffering that was taking place allows for students to be further engaged into the topic. Our Texbook, Give Me Liberty, describes how the depression transformed American life. Thousands of people took to the road in search of work, desperate to feed their starving families. 2 In addition thousands of families were evited from their homes and forced into impoverished Hoovervilles just as Steinbeck explained in Harvest Gypsies. These migrant workers did not receive the same liberty which Roosevelt described in his New Deal. The text explains the government under the New Deal as “all embracing”, which Steinbeck reports was not true. Roosevelt describes the definition of liberty which “we are moving forward to greater freedom, to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.”2 It is interesting to see these promises made by Roosevelt in our text then go on to read about the misery of