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2006

Migration Out of Rural Eastern : Insights for Research

Robert McLeman University of Guelph

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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 . 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, , 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 "" ,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

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. (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 biographies, and migrant camp administrative occurred in 1934 and 1936 (Fig. 3), destroying records. These were supplemented by v isits crops and making water for livestock and draft to Kern County, Ca lifornia, a nd Sequoyah a nima ls scarce. Such condition s preva iled County, O kla h o ma (Fig. 2 ), to inte n'iew across most of the mi grant source reg ion , with twe nty-s ix individu als who participated in or local va ri ations, and followed on the heels of witnessed the mi gration Ii rsthand1 8 several yea rs of below average precipitation19 30 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 2006

"fresnos." Farmers planted corn, a feed crop, on lower-lying parts of their land where moisture was highest. , the main cash crop, required less soil moisture than corn and was planted on higher ground. A relatively small area of flat, fertile land could be found in floodplains along the south­ ern edge of Sequoyah County, but this land was not farmed in the same manner as most land in the county. Beginning in the 1920s these "bot­ tomlands" were bought up by a small number FIG. 4. Agricultural worker's home near Sallisaw, of corporate farm operators who farmed using Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, ca. 1939. Source: tractors and employees instead of draft animals U.S. , Prints and Photographs and family or tenant labor.24 The majority of Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USFJ3-012266- M2 me. the rural population in Sequoyah was, as a resu It, living and working on the least produc­ tive agricultural lands in the county. In 1935 farms other than those in the bot­ In 1935 and 1937 severe storms caused flood­ tomlands of Sequoyah County were a mixture ing and widespread damage to crops in eastern of owner-operated and tenant-operated, with Oklahoma, with Sequoyah County farms expe­ tenants representing over 68 percent of the riencing heavy crop damage in 1935 20 Harsh farming population. 25 Three types of tenancy climatic conditions such as these are expected existed: cash rent, crop sharing (typically refer­ to occur with greater frequency in this region red to as "quarters and thirds"), and sharecrop­ in coming years as a result of climate change, ping.26 The principal distinction between the making this a particularly useful case study latter two types of tenancy was whether the for considering the potential impacts of future landlord or the tenant furnished the produc­ climate change on rural populations.21 tion materials (i.e., draft animals and crop The majority of farms in Sequoyah County inputs). Tenants who had their own draft ani­ in the 1930s were small (60-180 acres), located mals and equipment would give the landlord a in upland areas, with thin . In a study of quarter of their cotton production and a third Haskell County, across the Arkansas River from of their corn at the end of the year in exchange Sequoyah, rural sociologist Robert McMillan for the use of the land. Sharecroppers con­ suggested this area was characterized by "exces­ tributed little more than their own labor, and sive landlessness, small farms, poor soils, large consequently would have to share the harvest families, and raj generally low plane of living" equally with the landowner. Tenancy agree­ and that "small patches of cotton and corn, ments were made orally, unless the landowner together with a few cows, hogs and chickens, happened to be a corporation, and had to be make up the subsistence economy upon which renewed each year. At the end of the crop year the open-country people depend for a living.'>22 the landlord could evict the tenant with three Farm operators in this part of Oklahoma typi­ days' notice.27 Tenants who had worked the cally lived on the land they worked (Fig. 4). same land for years enjoyed no more security Horse and mule teams were the norm; econo­ than those less well established. mist Carey McWilliams noted on a visit in 1940 The alternating droughts and floods of that there were not more than ten tractors in the mid-1930s caused repeated crop fa ilu re all of Sequoyah County.23 Crops were rain-fed, throughout Oklahoma's cotton-producing and draft animals and livestock drank from region, including Sequoyah County. The right creeks or shallow ponds dug by horse-drawn of tenant farmers to reside on their farm was ~mJRATIO'i OUT OF 1930S RURAL EASTERN OKLAHOf-.lA 31

contingent upon producing sufficient crops grower. He encouraged the rest of the family to and/or cash to pay the landowner. Repeated follow, correctly assuring his father that with crop failures led to tenants being displaced in his skills with draft animals, he would quickly large numbers. Consequently, small-acreage find work on arrival. Successive years of poor tenant farmers from cotton-producing areas corn harvests in Oklahoma due to the droughts became the largest single group of entrants com'inced his family to migrate. An excerpt to Oklahoma's migrant pupulation during the from a poem written by another former migrant 1930s.20 describes this process best:

CAPITAL E\JOOWMENTS OF MIC3RAl"T A'-:D My Daddy's older brother NON-MIGRANT HOUSEHOLDS Who had settled in Lamont Said "I'll send you the money Households that migrated from eastern To join us if you want" Oklahoma to California during this period He sent two hundred dollars displayed distinctive patterns of capital endow­ So we severed all our ties ments. They were generally young, intact Then to dusty Henryetta nuclear families with a high level of social We said our sad goodbyes. 34 capital in the form of preexisting family con­ nections to California.29 By the 1920s a com­ The migration of the first family member to munity of 60,000 former Oklahomans lived in start the chain did not necessarily occur years California, many drawn by opportunities to ahead of following family members. One inter­ obtain wage-based employment.'o Historian \'iewee I spoke with in California had migrated James Gregory suggests that the 1930s migra­ there with his fifty-four-year-old father and tion was thus "not an atomistic dispersion of family after their third successi\'e loss of crops solitary families, but a guided chain migra­ due to drought, hailstorms, and more drought. tion."3l McWilliams noted that many I 930s The interviewee's older brother had, in his squatter communities in rural California were words, "seen the writing on the wall" and made up of people who had all migrated from mowd to California in 1936. The remaining the same county.,2 In oral history inten'iews family members joined him the next year after conducted in the 1980s under the California yet another crop failure. Odyssey Project, interviewees who migrated Social capital was not distributed uniformly from Oklahoma to California during the 1930s across households that migrated to California, regularly reported that they followed other nor did all households that migrated to Califor­ family members to California." nia ha\'e family members already well estab­ Interviewees I spoke with in California had lished there. Some families did go simply based similar experiences. The family of one inter­ on word-of-mouth reports, and others migrated viewee, which had lost their farm in Oklahoma only weeks or months on the heels of a family due to flooding, had to split up. The inter­ member. The father of one migrant I spoke viewee's stepfather ~ll1d mother migrated to with, for example, had lost his oilfield job near An'in, California, where her stepfather's sister McAlester, Oklahoma, in 1929, and so tried was already established. Meanwhile, she and her with his father. When that enter­ grandparents lived as squatters on pri\'ate farm­ prise failed because of dmught, her father in land in Oklahoma, and mO\'ed to Califlirnia desperation took work as a farm laburer for fifty once her parents found wl)rk there. Another cents a day plus the right ro occupy a dirt-floor typical ston' was that of an Oklahoman I spoke cabin. Upon hearing by word of mouth that the\' with whose oldest brother went out to the San could find better opportunities in California, her Joaquin Valley in the early 1930s and found entire family, including grandparents, packed work with DiGiorgio Fanm, a large commercial up and migrated at once, without family support 32 CiREAT PLAI'-:S QUARTERLY, WINTER 2006 awaiting them. However, such accuunt5 of numbers of workers to draw upon at particular independent family migration to CalitlJrnia are times during the growing seaSlln, established a minority among my own interviews and thuse residents did not want these workers to settle in recorded in mal history prujects 1 studied. their clllumunities after harvest. In the words In general terms, social capital influenced of one migrant, "It did not take long before the the Califurnia migration in four key ways. and Arkies were viewed as a blight un the First, information abuut jub opportunities in neighborhood."l8 Conflicts between migrants California flowed back to Oklahoma through and residents have been \\'ell documented in networks uf friends and relatives. The flow nO\'els, books, and film, and Collins's camp of information was such that poems and folk re~'()rts and Stanley's aCCllunt of the building sungs singing the praises of California began uf the Sunset School for migrant children at 10 circulating among Oklahomans. l ) this camp provide additional insights. Before Secnnd, migrants typically Llid not have a the Sunset School was built, many migrant great deal of money, and the presence of friends children suffered discrimination in the local or relatiYCs in California helped direct them to publ ic schools. One migrant stated: a place to stm', e\'Cn if it was a squatters' camp or shack. Sometimes these camps were on the Fur two years we walked to the Vineland property of Oklahomans who had migrated Schuol. It was quite a trip and I can defi­ pre\'iously, as was the case of two men 1 inter­ nitely remember the teachers weren't all viewed, une whose family lived in such a camp, pleased with the deluge of smart brained the nther whose family owned it. l6 kids .... I can definitely remember Third, word uf mouth among migrant not appreciating the treatment recei\'ed at communities helped members learn about job this school. Sume of the children at times opportunities and the relatiYe desirability of were made to sit lln the fluor at the back of employers. Migrant camp administrator Tom the room, e\'en if seats were empty. I believe Collins's weekly repurts pruvide numerous it was because some of these children were references to the remarkable degree to which barefoot and less clean.4c social capital continued to form among migrant communities after they arri\'ed in California. l ! The migrant-built Sunset School quickly One California inten'iewee, whose father was became a source of pride in the migrant com­ an alcoholic widower, told me how the women munity, and many interviewees related fond of the camp looked after him while his father memories uf huw local, non-OklahLlluan resi­ was away working or off drinking. Another dents soon sought to enroll their children to interviewee recalled huw one camp resident take alh-antage of facilities like the in-gmund had gone back to Oklahoma for a visit and run swimming pool and unusual courses like air­ out of money; the other camp residents tuok up craft mechanics. a collection to help him get back. A breakfast Also common among migrants from rllral meeting I had over biscuits and gra\'y with Oklahoma to rural California was an endow­ fourteen migrants was peppered with stories of ment of embodied cultural capital, what might huw one persun's family had li\'ed with anuth­ otherwise be referred to simply as human capi­ er's on arri\'al in California, ur huw \'ehicles tal, in the form of particular agricultural skill were luaned between families. sets and physical health

Oklahomans had often so ught seasonal agri­ cultural wo rk in neighboring states after their own growing season was finished, but in the 1930s these traditional employment destina­ tions no longer had work for them. For example, by 1936 there were more work­ ers than needed to pick cotton in Texas, and by 1940 hunger was breaking out in out-of-state migrant camps along the Rio Grande41 On the other h and, migrants who went farther afield, to Arizona or to California's San Joaquin Val ley during cotton-picking season , would quickly find work. Howeve r, it was not possible to subsist year-round on cotton-picking wages alone, and so to remain in California required the ability to move frequently between farms and to perform physically demanding tasks like swamping potatoes and hauling irrigation FIG. 5. Cotton harvest in Kern Count)', California, equipment, often in scorching heat. Migrant 19305. Source: U.S. Library of Congress, Prints and families therefore tended not to bring elderly, Photographs Div ision, FSA-OWI Collection, LC­ unhealthy, or physically weak relatives with USF34-018378-E OLe. them. Instead, they tended to be yo ung, healthy, married couples with children, and if old enough, the children worked with them in educational attainment (i.e., institutionali zed the field s. cultural capital) among the heads of migrant In my interviews in Kern County, I encoun­ households was likely the result of opportuni­ tered no migrants whose parents were well edu­ ties unavailable to them in Oklahoma, not the cated prior to migration, consistent with what result of cultural preferences. I found in other sources. This is not surprising, Economic capital among ho usehold s that as schools in Oklahoma were, as one inter­ migrated to California also showed patterns of viewee carefu ll y put it, "insufficient." Schools similarity. Draft animals, agricultural equip­ in Oklahoma were funded by property taxes, ment, automobiles, and personal possessions and in areas where landowners were the minor­ we re the principal manifestations of economic ity of rural res idents, they had little incentive capita l in the mi gra nt source community. to fund anything more tha n rudimenta ry Ownership of automobil es among Oklahoman schools for the landless population. Landless migrant families was as high as that of non­ farmers in O kl ahoma ge nerally had lower levels migrants, even though migrant families were of education than landowners, with few hav ing typicall y poorer than non-migrants and pos­ been educated beyond elementary schooIY sessed lower levels of many types of fa rm­ There is no ev idence to suggest that landless related capit a1. 44 Most Califo rnia mi grants Oklahomans as a group did not value educa­ report having so ld off their animals, personal tion, as witnessed by the school story referred possessions, a nd farm equipment prior to to a bove. O kl a ho mans in the Ca li fornia migrating, some using the money to purchase migra nt camps placed tremendous valu e on their fir st automobile. One interviewee wid me hav ing a decent sc hool ava il able to them. that his father could not bear to sell his two Moreover, a full quarter of children enrolled in favorite hunting dogs, and so these rode on rural Kern County schools in 1938 we re origi­ the fenders of the automobile or ran alongside nall y from O klahoma41 In other words, lack of all the way to California. The most common 34 CREAT PLAINS Qt;ARTERLY. WIl\TER 2006

\'ehicle used by migrants, according to people no lunger sufficient to support them without I spuke with, was a Ford Model T or Model her presence. A, se\'eral years old, with mattresses strapped A Ithough they were clearly much poorer to the wof and towing behind a flat trailer of than established residents of California, the family possessions, Access to an automobile migrant stream included few that were com­ was not only necessary to make the long jour­ pletely penniless. Few migrants lacked access ney to California, but the agricultural labor to automobiles or to interregional family net­ market in California required workers to travel works, and few were elderly, physically disabled, between (urns. Year-round employment in one or unwell. Those Oklahllmans who were abso­ location un a large commercial farm was diffi­ lutely destitute had to find ways of adapting cult to find and highly sought after; most work­ llther than leaving for California. One source's ers would ha\'e to relocate freljuently or tr~1\'el parents, who remained in Oklahoma while long distances on a daily basis if maintaining a other relati\'Cs went to California, were so des­ permanent home base. titute they spent llne winter during the 1930s Very few migrants to California appear to living in a chicken coop. Another said he would have owned any land prior to migration. In hm'e left Sequoyah CllUnty souner than he did one study of 6,655 migrants to rural California, (in the 19405) if only he had had more money. only 3.7 percent had owned land prior to As money from cash crops became scarce in migration.4' An'in migrant camp records show Oklahoma in the 19305, noneconomic forms that only a handful of Oklahoman migrants of capital increased in value. Strong local had owned farmland immediately prior to networks uf social capital helped many rural migration.46 Both sources suggest virtually Oklahomans adapt to the harsh conditions all migrants had been landless agricultural without migrating. Barter became a principal lahorers or tenant farmers prior to migration, form of economic transaction in the rural and this is consistent with studies done in community and was carried out through local Oklahoma around the same time.47 My own family networks and community relation­ interviews with migrants and non-migrants in ships. Milk and eggs were products commonly Oklahoma and California similarly confirmed exchanged by farmers at rural stores for coffee that landownership or lack thereof was a factor and sugar. One interviewee, whose father that distinguished migrants and non-migrants. had operated a store in Sallisaw during the As one interviewee told me, "If you had your Depression years, cllnfirmed that haying good land [in Oklahoma] paid for, you probably standing within the community helped one made it [through the droughts]." llbtain shmt-term credit from local merchants This distinction between landownership at a time when credit from financial institutions and tenancy appears to hm'e heen a key point was prohibitiYely expensive or simply unavail­ of separation between those who were dis­ able. Another interviewee, whllse father was an placed from their homes and those who were electrician in Sallisaw, figured that at least half not in 1930s Oklahoma. Not all tenant farmers of her father's customers could not pay him. were displaced, hm\'CYer, and not all that were Other households that resisted migration had displaced migrated immediately to California. net\\'orks of relatives within Oklahoma with For example, one inten'ie\yee's family, after whom they shared farms or resiLlences. Some losing their farm to drought, was able to remain report using social connections within their in Oklahoma for several years by li\'ing with local community to get work on local infra­ extended family members (i.e., making use structure projects under the Works Progress of their local network of sLlcial capital). In Administration (WPA), gaining an ackantage his case, his mother's unexpected death led over those who lacked such connectiuns. As directly to his father's decision to migrate to one migrant, whose family tried hut faileLl to CalifclJ'l1ia, as the extended famil\' network was get WPA work, summari:ed, "There was a lot ~llC;RATIO\J OUT OF 1930:-; RURAL EASTERl'\ UKLAHCl"lA 15 t politics played.''!:' At times, WPA work was helped families reduce their dependence on he only wage labor a\'ailahle in places like cash money. California migrants frequently ,lilisaw during the 19300', and farmers who recall a particular sense of loss telt when the ,.mld supply their own teams and equipment family had to sell the Singer sewing machine ,'c'ei\'ed additional payments on WPA jobs. to finance the trip \\'est. he benefits of WPA jobs were significant, but ,ocial stigma could be attached. In the words DI:-;C:Uc;SIU~ t' une migrant, Their capital endowments indicate that If you \\ere on the WPA they would send migrants who went to rural California were a commodity truck around. A commodity neither a randum nm a representative selec­ truck was \\'here they had staples in it like tion of the general population of rural eastern cheese, sugar, coffee, oatmeal, curn meal Oklahoma. This is in part because and stuff like that. It would meet at the programs to assist struggling families reached schoolhouse which was about a mile and some households but not others, and those a half from where we lived and the people that did receiYe assistance found that it did wouldn't go to meet this truck because they not meet all their needs. For example, in didn't want the handout. They were hungry Oklahoma in 1940 more than 90,000 families but most of them had too much pride see. were eligible for WPA jobs but only one-third So they sent uut a letter that if you didn't were so employed, many only occasiunally. so meet this truck to get these staples, they Similarly, more than 130,000 tenant farmers \\ould cut you off the WPA. It hurt my dad in Oklahoma were eligible for relief assistance so bad that he would send me on a horse up under programs administered by the Farm there with a sack to get the staples. It didn't Security Administration, but funds for only buther me because I was young, but it would about 16,000 were available 51 Assistance hurt his pride.40 under the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA), which paid farmers tu reduce acreages in an Cultural capital employed in sometimes attempt to stabilize commodity prices, favored "enious ways also helped families who those who owned farms. 52 As one migrant Iwined in Oklahoma adapt, through supple­ described it, even those whu did participate in nting their diets and incomes. One inter­ AAA did not always get paid promptly: .'wee described how his father earned money catching skunks for pdts without using guns After Roose\,elt was elected in 1932 he had ,nares, which cost money, by fishing barbed the farmers plow up their cotton crop that e down into the lair. Another explained they were growing because there was a sur­ \\ catfish were caught without bait or tackle plus un the market. He thought that wuuld "noodling" one's fingers under a sunken bring prices up. My father plowed under his Imd enticing the fish to bite them. During cotton crop that year [1937] and I knuw he .hihtion, many an isolated farm produced didn't get paid for all of that until 1940. I l1emade whiskey for sale, and a still could don't know huw far back it went. I don't ,\Lmd un even the tiniest creek in Sequoyah remember if he gut paid for any of it while Il11t\'. Farm women canned or preserved we were in Oklahoma, but after we came to ctically every foodstuff imaginable, and California he got paid for some of the crops cultural extension agents helped pass along he plowed under in Oklahoma.)) deas on huw to expand the range e\'en her. Skills employed by farm women, such Unlike owner-operators, tenant farmers did he ability to make clothing by hand frum nut have the option tu subsist from year to tically anv scrap of Iwailable material, year on land they did nut uwn; the landlord mw;t be pai,L and ,;u a successful cash cmp was when the Del'ressiun set in. At the same time, require,l each year. It is also repurted th~lt some ,Iemand \\'as~I'll\\'ing in rural California for landlords e\icted tenants specifically tu collect the \err skill,; m,ltW Oklahomans l"lssessed, the AAA ,]cJTa,~e-re,luction subsi,ly fur them­ hecause the pUlll uf immigrant \\'urkcrs \\'ho seh'es.o4 hall tLl,!itiunalh' performed such work were I n short, the m'er,d I demand fur gm'ernmenr cxclu,lcd fWIll entering the Unite,! States assistance, especially among Oklahoma's land­ as a result uf immigrati'lll pulicy changes. o(, less rural cummunity, greatly exceeded what MoreO\'er, agricultural wages \\'elT consider­ was ayailable. Consequently, rural househ'llds ably higher in Cliifornia than in Oklahuma. that cuuid nut access gm'ernment relief l'W­ But to trayel to Calif'lrnia and gain access to grams, which inclll,led large numbers of tenant upportunities there came with a cost, and Sll farmers, \\'ere obliged to adapt in their l)Wn sucial capital built annmd fortner Oklahomans \\'ays. Thuse households possessing the partiCLI­ already estahlishe,l in Califurnia facilitated Iar types uf cal'it,d endcnnl1ent described abm'e new migration. adapted b\· migrating to Calit~)rnia. An m'erarching ohjecti\e that led me tu It shoule! alsu be nuted that, eyen as out­ undertake this research is to e\u1tually be able migratiun occurs from an are,] suffering under to answer the question, If a community experi­ harsh climatic conclitiuns, new migratiun can ences alh'erse climatic conditions in the future, still occur into that area. This \\'as the case in is migration likely tu ensue, and if so, ",hu is many eastern Oklahoma cuunties like Sequoyah likely to leaw 7 This case study suggests that County during the 1930s. E\'en wh ill' loca I the answer depends in the first instance on the tenant farmers were being displaced, displaced nature and effectiveness of institutional and and lInempluyed people were arriving from community-Ie\'el adaptations. Had farm assis­ other parts of the state where rdati\'ely fewer tance under New Deal pwgrams been more tenant opportunities existed. The increased readily a\'ailable to nonlanduwning farmers, demand fur tenant farmland added ecunomic migration frum eastern Oklahoma might have capital to the pockets of landlords, who were been less prunounced. Conversely, had there able to collect "pri\'ilege money," an upfront been nu AAA or WPA assistance at all, more deman,! fur cash un top of the typical share of landowning farmers and e\'en more tenants O the crop to which the landlord \\'as entitled. ) might have joined the migrant streams. The behavior of rural eastern Oklahomans In the absence of institutional suppurt, during this periud shows that, under harsh households will adapt to climatic adversity in conditiuns, the different forms of capital may their own ways as best they can given their be interchangeable. With repeated droughts capital endowments. Huw huusehold capital and fluods, the principal \'ehicle by \\'hich endowments respund to climatic stimuli will farmers could ubtain ecunomic capital-by \'ary frum place tu place, not only because of selling a han'est of cutton for cash-vanished. differing human systems but because of ,liffer­ The ya lue of uther forms of capital changed ing natural environmental conditions as well. in respunse. These new \'aluations of nun­ In eastern Oklahoma, a decline uf ecunomic economic capital arc reflected in the migra­ capital due to cash crop failure and stress on tion patterns. With fewer crops to harvest in livestock was the most ohvious impact of the Oklahoma and surrounding drought-stricken climatic conditiuns of the 1930s. Had the areas, the \'alue of human capital in the fllrm location uf this study been moved a relatively of agricultural labor skills hecame signific:mtly shurt distance, the effects of climate on capital less \'aluable on the local eml,loyment market, endowments may have been quite different. as there was little off-farm work to be had. For example, in southwestern in the Railroads, llilfields, and mines, the traditiunal 1930s, drought led to crop failure and stress on sources uf llff-farm employment, had cut back li\'estock, affecting farmers' econumic capital, \11(;lt"-TIO\l OUT OF ly,eS l'UZ.\L EASTER:\ UKLAHClt\\:\ 17

" it did in eastern Oklahum,L Hll\wn~r, community, then far-reaching migration )0' \'ation l)f soils in the semiarid landscare of possihlcc,2 Hll\\T\Tr, the social netwllrk is not "de; left them prone ttl wind eny;ion during in itself the sole indicatlll' of the potential l'eriods, and the resulting du!'t sfOrms migration outcome; the rel

\,lministration, C.S. Bureau of Agricultural 33. California Odyssey Pruject, "Oral Histor\' !.c(momics, 1937). Inten'iews," 1981, Calitmni'l State Uni\'ersit\'­ 17. For example, Victor ~ee an,l Jimy S,meicr" BakersfieLl Library, http://\\\\'\dib.c sub.ellu/ special! 'Understanding the Di\'ersity uf MigLll1t Incur­ inren'iews.htmL ,'oration: A Forms-of-Capital Al'~'mach," Ethnic and 34. Excerpt fnlm "Thank Y()U HenrycrCI" I,y Ron !~L1cial ')tHdies 24, no. 3 (2001): 386-41 L Lll1gley, which al'l'earc,l in the Dust B()wl journal, Iti. Inten'iews were conducted on the understand­ sUPI,lemcnt to the An'in Tiller/Lamont l\e/Jortcr, illg that inten'iewee dent it ie, \\'(lUld remain anuny­ October 16, 2002,10. Henryerr,l is the author's home­ :UellIS. N(l recor,ling equipment was used during town in Oklahoma; Llmont is a f.lrming community i11tu\'iews, out ul respect fur the comt,)j·t :m,l privacy in California's suuthern San Joaquin Vallev. ,)1 the inten'iewees, many of whom are eLlerl\' and 35. Gregory, American Exudus. . III declining he:dth. Handwritten nutes were taken 36. This latter gentleman h,ls passed away since I Juring intcn'iews and then transcribed alterwards met him, highlighting the urgencY of ducumeming, Into elcctrcmic software. Consequently, lengthy \'er­ before it is lost irrcccl\Trably, the wealth uf infurma­ hltim quotes from inten'iews can nut he reproduced tion this group of Americans po"esses about adap­ here. The quotes that are contained in this article :He tation tu ad\'erse climatic. laken lmm OllUrces \\'here the identity of the source 37. Tom Collins, \'Ceekly Administrative Reports, h,ls been publicly disclosed elsewhere. A1Tin Federal Mil;wnt Labor Camp (San Francisco: 19. McMillan, "Some Ober\ations on Oklahoma Farm Security Administration, 1936). Among these Pupulation Movements." reports is recorde,l the visit of , who 20. Jacqueline Gordon Sherm:ll1, "The Okla­ based much of his novel The Gml)es of \Vrath on homans in California during the Depressiun information obtained from Collins and observa­ Decade, 19,1-1941" (PhD thesis, Unin'rsity of tions made at the An'in camp. California, 19(0); Whisenhunt, "'We\'C Got the 'i'l. Flora Nichols, "Leo B. Hart Saw Okie Children HoO\'Cr Blues'''; U.S. Huuse, "Testimony of Wheeler as 'Diamonds in the Rough,'" Dust BOLd journal, ~layo." a supplement to the An'in Tiller/Lam()nt Rep()rter, 2 L Cynthia Rosen:weig and Daniel Hillel, "The October 2, 1996, 6. Dust Bowl of the 1930s: Analog uf Greenhouse 39. Sec Walter J. Stein, CalijrJrnia and the Dust Effect in the Great Plains;" journal of Em'ironmental Bowl Mil;ration (Westport, CT: GreenWl)u,1 Press, C.;!uality 22, no. 1 (199,): 9-22; National As:;essment 19(3); Gregory, American Exodus; Steinbeck's noyel Team, Climate Change 1m/Jacts on the United ')tates. The Grapes of \\/mth and the suhsequent film wr­ 22. Robert T McMillan, Migration of Population sion; Collins, \Veekl) Administmtil'e Reports, Arvin; in Fit'e Oklahoma Townships, Report nu. B-271 Jerry Stanley, Children uf the Dust Bowl: The True (Stillwater: Ok lahoma Agricultural Experiment Ston of the School at \Veedpatch Camp (New York: St:ltion, 194,), lO. Crown Publishers, 1992). 2,. McWilliams, III Fares the Land. 40. E. R. Selbach Johnson, "1934-1939: A Journey 24. U.S. House, "Testimony of Wheeler Mayo." to Weeclpatch Camp," Dust Bowl Journal, a supple­ 2'5. William J. Coleman and H. Alfred Hockley, ment tll the Arvin Tiller/Lamont Reporter, October Legal Aspects of Landlord-Tenant Relatiunships in 20, 1999,5-6. Oklahoma, Report no. B-241 (Stillwater: Oklahoma 41. U.S. l-iullse, "Testimuny of J. H. Bond, Agricultural Experiment Station, 1940). Assistdnt Director; K McKinley, Farm Placement 26. For a detailed description 01 Oklahoman farm Supcrdsor; and L H. Banks, Farm Placement tenancy, sec Southern, Farm Tenancy in Oklahoma. Supervisor, Texas State Employment Sen'ice, n. C:oleman and Hockley, Le,~al Aspects of Austin, Oklahuma City Hearings, September 19- Landlord-Tenant Rclationshil)s in Oklahoma. 20, 1940," in ')clect Committee to Tm'estigme the 28. McMillan, Mil;ration of Populatiun in Fit'e Interstate Mil;ration of Destitute Huuse Oklahoma Townships. of Representatives, on H. Res. 63 and H. Res. 491, 29. This ubservation has also been made previ­ 76th Cong., 3rd ')css., 1940-41 (Washingtun, DC: ously in American Exodus, historian James Gregory's Gmernment Printing Office, 1941), 1812~E. detailed 1989 account of the Calilornia migration. 42. McM ill:lI1, '\ligration of Population in Five 30. McMillan, "Some Obserntions on Oklahoma Oklahoma Totvnships. Population Movement"'; Otis Durant Duncan, 43. "Oklahoma Pupils Form 24 Per Cent," Bakers­ The Theun and Consequences of MubIlity of Farm field Californian, ~1ay 10, 1938, 9. l'o/mlmion, Report no. C-88 (Stillwater: Oklahoma 44. McMilLrn, Mil;ration of Population in Five Agricultural Experiment Station, 1940); U.S. Oklahoma Townshi/ls. H(;use, "Testimony 01 Wheeler Mayo." 4'5. Alma Hol:schuh, A Study of 6655 Mil;mnt 31. Greg()ry, American Exodus, 28. Households Receit'ing Emergency Grants (San 32. ~lcWilliams, III Fares the Land. Franciscu: Farm Security Administration, 1939). -}0 ljREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, \VINTER 2006

46. Cllllins, W'eei