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A vivid, firsthand account of the migrations, immigrant camps, and labor organizing of displaced Midwestern farmers during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, illustrated with striking photographs.

Table of Contents

• "Migrant Farmer," by Dorothy Babb
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: The Babb Sisters
• 1. The Dirty Plate Trail
• 2. Field Notes
  • Oklahoma Panhandle, 1934
  • "Triple A, Dusted Out"
  • Note on the government's AAA program to reduce hog production and corn acreage
  • The Dispossessed
    • Labor Conditions
    • Farmer-Industrialist
  • Labor Protest
    • Organization of labor
  • Government Camps
    • Fascist characteristics of the campaign against the migratory workers in California
    • Visalia 2/24/38
    • Labor Contractor
    • Kinds of camps in California
    • Birthrate
    • In answer to the frequent threat...
    • In the fields, 1938
  • Large Landowners
    • Rag Town
  • Refugee Needs
    • A day in the camps
    • San Joaquin Valley, California, 1938
    • Thirty-seven varieties of religon...
  • Striking Workers, Angry Growers
    • March, 1938
    • October 29, 1938
    • Two stories of labor spies
  • Notes for a Novel
• 3. Reportage
  • Migratory Farm Workers in California (1938)
  • There Ain't No Food (1938)
  • Farmers without Farms (New Masses, 21 June 1938)
  • We Sure Struck It Tuff: The Storm
  • Dealing in Major Catastrophes (New Masses, 23 May 1939)
  • Letter to Dorothy Babb (May 1938)
• 4. Dust Bowl Tales
  • The Dark Earth (The Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1934)
  • Morning in Imperial Valley (Kansas Magazine, 1941)
  • Whose Names Are Unknown
• 5. The Dust Bowl as Site of Memory
• 6. Epilogue: Letters from the Fields
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

About the Author

Sanora Babb (1907-2005) became an acclaimed short story writer, poet, and author of three novels. Dorothy Babb (1909-1995) frequently collaborated with Sanora in her work.

Douglas Wixson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri-Rolla, is the author of Worker-Writer in America: Jack Conroy and the Tradition of Midwestern Literary Radicalism, 1898-1990. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.