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Migration out of 1930S Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights for Climate Change Research

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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 2006 Migration Out of 1930s Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights for Climate Change Research Robert McLeman University of Guelph Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons McLeman, Robert, "Migration Out of 1930s Rural Eastern Oklahoma: Insights for Climate Change Research" (2006). Great Plains Quarterly. 151. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/151 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Published in GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY 26:1 (Winter 2006) Copyright © 2006 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. MIGRATION OUT OF 1930s RURAL EASTERN OKLAHOMA INSIGHTS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH ROBERT McLEMAN The question of how communities and indi­ it is generally helieved that changes in the \'iduals adapt to changing climatic conditions natural environment can indeed influence is of pressing concern to scientists and policy­ human migration and settlement patterns, the makers in light of the growing evidence that nature of this relationship is not well under­ human activity has modified the Earth's cli­ stood, and the numher of empirical studies is mate, A number of authors have suggested that relatively few. 2 widespread changes in human settlement and With this in mind, I undertook an inves­ migration patterns may occur in response to tigation of how rural p'lpulations responded The future impacts of human-induced climate to a period of adverse climatic conditions in ,~hange, such as sea level change, changes in rural eastern Oklahoma during the 1930s, 3gricultural yields, and increasing frequency with particular interest in those households md intensity of extreme weather events.1 While that adapted hy migrating to rural California. This is not the first time that 19305 Oklahoma has heen the suhject of research into how people and communities adapt to difficult ,cy Words: climate change, drought, Dust Bowl, endrunmental conditions. In the wake of a ',reat Depression, migration 1985 conference entitled "Social Adaptation to Semi-Arid Environments" at the Center for Great Plains Studies in Lincoln, Great Plains :ubert McLeman is a /)()stdocwral fellow in geography Quarterly presented a scries of papers hy well­ the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. i is research specializes in human-environment Tela­ known scholars exploring human-environment ms and has been 1mblished or is forthcoming in interactions that gave rise to the "Dust Bowl" ,anals including Climatic Change. The Canadian conditions of the 1930.1 and the consequent ;"'ographcr, and Die Ede (Germany). social impacts.) Unlike the western part of the state, eastern Oklahoma does not lie in the semiarid environment of the Dust Bowl, but I'Q 26 (Winter 2006): 27AO] its rural population also suffered considerably 27 28 UREAT PLAIJ\:-; QlJ.A..RTEIZLY, WINTER 2(\16 frum the harsh climatic conditions of that leasing payments. In the case of both subgroups, decade. While the climatic conditions of that rhe attraction to eastern and central Oklahum:t decade were not necessarily the product of cli­ was the «\'ailability of large numbers of small mate change, they are analogous to predictions tenant farms, where :t mix of cash crop and sub­ of future climatic conditions in this and other sistence farming could be taken up \"ith modest continental regiom. Studying how popula­ amounts of economic capital. tions then adapted may provide insights on The second lllovement began mid-decade. how people may respond to dlh'erse impacts of When rural sociologist Otis Durant Duncan future climate change. My intent in presenting reported that "an exodus from the State is these findings to toddY's Great Plains Quarterh proceed i ng rapidly," he was likely ohsen'ing readers is to stimulate further discussion of the front end of the departure uf more than adaptation to climate change among scholars 300,000 people from Oklahoma over the fol­ experienced in Oreat Plains research, a region lowing five years.tl One-third of these joined where the human-em'ironment reiationsh ip is the large-scale interregion,ll migration of over so readily \isible and where the future impacts 300,000 people from the southern Cheat Plains of climate change are expected to be especially to California between 1935 and 1941.') Two dis­ prunounced4 tinct subgroups have been identified within the California migrant stream: migrants who origi­ MIeJRATIO\: PATTERN:; IN OKLAHCllvLA.. nated in urban areas of the source region <md DURI\:U THE 1930s tended to settle in urban areas in Calif(1rl1ia, and those who originated in rural areas in In Oklahoma du ring the 1930s, three broad the source region and settled in rural parts of migration patterns occurred that were distinct Calif(,rniaY The population of Kern County, from those obsen'ed before or after, and which Cal i forn ia, the largest agricultu ral-cuu nty were superi mposed on a region where there recipient of rural in-migrants from Oklahoma already existed a fluid movement of people and other states, grew by more than 63 percent hetween farms and in and out of farm tenancy, between 1935 and 1940.11 Of the rural-to­ depending uf'on their economic f(lrtunes.) rural migrants within this interstate migrant The first of these was a migration into rural stream, most originated in eastern and central areas of central anll eastern Okla homa that Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, and began in the first half of the decade and coin­ not in the semiarid "Dust Bowl" region w the cided with the onset of the Oreat Depression.!> west, despite that moniker havi ng been given This movement consisted of two subgwups. The tu the migration]2 The Oklahomans \\'ithin first was made up of people displaced frum the this group are the primary f(lCUS of this study. wage-labor economy of the region, particularly The third llluvement observed was an intra­ from urban centers or areas where oil produc­ regional rural-to-urban migration, most visil,ly tion or mining touk place. These sectors of manifested in the form of an accumulation of the eClmomy contracted with the onset of the squatter settlements un the ()utskirts of urban Depression, and many of those left unemployed areas in the latter half of the decade (Fig. 1)] l went into subsistence fanning to support their Obsen'ers at the time noted that the high families. The entry of this group into fanning turn(wer of farms in Oklahoma, het\\'een one­ briefly interrupted a longer-term trenll that quarter and une-third of farms in any given began in 1900, in which the proportiun of year, did not typically reflect an increase in Oklahoma's ()\'erall population li\'ing in rural farmers' sllciueconomic status. 14 Only a min()r­ areas had fallen into decline.~ The second sub­ ity of farm mO\'es led to a higher lewl of Lmd grou~' consisted of rural migrants from semiarid tenure, <lnl! in more than one-half of cases regions in western Oklahoma who had lost their no im~'[()\'Cment in net wealth resulted from l farms thmugh i nabi I ity w meet mortgage ur farmer,;' l11()\·es. ) There was inClT<lsin,g land- M IGRATION OUT OF 19305 RU RA L EASTERN OKLA HOMA 29 FIG . 2. Loca tion of study counties . FI G. 1. Shac/( camp on outsl(irts of Oldahoma C ity, 1939. Source: U. S. Li brary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Di vision, FSA-OWI Collecti on, LC­ USF34-033878-D DLe 12 10 lessness, and for many, a pattern of socioeco­ nomic descent emerged, from landownership to tenancy, sh arecroppi ng, agricu ltu ra I labor, and ultimately, joining those who sought urban wage labor or government assistance16 long-term <1 \'erage 1934 1936 What motivated indiv idual households to join one of these migrant streams, and wh at FI G. 3. Summer precipitation in Sequoyah County, en abled others to avoid mi gration and adapt Oklahoma, 1930s . Sources: U. S . Department of by other means? Recently developed theories Agri culture (USDA ) Weather Bureau C limatologi­ in migration sch olarship suggest that access cal Data, O kl ahoma Section, \'O ls. 43 and 45, 193 4 to capital in its economic, social, and cultural and 1936; U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) forms h as a significant influence on the migra­ Fo recast O ffi ce records, Tulsa . "Long term average" tion beh avior of individuals.17 In this study, I shown here is based on N WS record s, 1961-p resent, for Sallisaw, due to discontinuity of USDA records. investigated the extent to whi ch the capital Summer = June, Jul y, August. e ndowments of rura l easte rn Okla h o ma n h ouseholds we re refl ected among those who migrated to rural California in the 1930s. A wid e range of information sources was drawn Average annual temperatures and precipita­ upon, including reports of federal government tion levels in the state of Oklahoma are highly agencies and O klahoma's ag ri cultural ex peri­ va ri able, and periods of extended dro ught are ment station , transc ripts from congression al common. However, in Sequoyah County, which hearings , con temporary and pos t-event schol­ is located in the heart of the interreg ion al arly research, published oral histori es and auto­ mi grant so urce area, unusually severe droughts biographies, and migrant camp administrative occurred in 1934 and 1936 (Fig.
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