What was the general term used to describe Dust Bowl refugees?

Debasing term referring to an Oklahoman

Okie

Rear view of an Okie'southward motorcar, passing through Amarillo, Texas, heading west, 1941
Regions with significant populations
Oklahoma	~3 million
Languages
American English: Oklahoma dialect, Southern American English, Midland American English
Religion
Southern Baptist, Pentecostal, Lutheran
Related indigenous groups
White Southerners

An Okie is a resident, native, or cultural descendant of Oklahoma.

In California, the term came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma coming to await for employment. The Dust Bowl and the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million displaced people, many headed to the farm labor jobs in the Central Valley. By 1950, four 1000000 individuals, or one quarter of all persons born in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri, lived outside the region, primarily in the West.^[1]

Prominent Okies included vocalist/songwriter Woody Guthrie and country musician Merle Haggard. John Steinbeck wrote most Okies moving west in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, which was filmed in 1940 past John Ford.

Great Depression usage [edit]

In the mid-1930s, during the Grit Bowl era, large numbers of farmers fleeing ecological disaster and the Neat Low migrated from the Not bad Plains and Southwest regions to California mostly along historic U.South. Route 66. Californians began calling all migrants by that name, even though many newcomers were not actually Oklahomans. The migrants included people from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico, just were all referred to equally "Okies" and "Arkies".^[ii] More than of the migrants were from Oklahoma than any other state, and a full of 15% of the Oklahoma population left for California.^{[ citation needed ]}

Ben Reddick, a costless-lance journalist and later publisher of the Paso Robles Daily Printing, is credited with first using the term Oakie, in the mid-1930s, to identify migrant subcontract workers. He noticed the "OK" abbreviation (for Oklahoma) on many of the migrants' license plates and referred to them in his article as "Oakies". The beginning known usage was an unpublished private postcard from 1907.^[iii]

Living weather in California during the Not bad Low [edit]

Once the Okie families migrated from Oklahoma to California, they often were forced to work on large farms to support their families. Because of the minimal pay, these families were often forced to live on the outskirts of these farms in shanty houses they built themselves. These homes were ordinarily set up in groups called Squatter Camps or Shanty Towns, which were ofttimes located near the irrigation ditches which ran along the outskirts of these farms. Indoor plumbing was inaccessible to these migrant workers, and so they were forced to resort to using outhouses. Unfortunately, because of the minimal space allotted to the migrant workers, their outhouses were normally located near the irrigation ditches, and some waste would inevitably runoff into the water. These irrigation ditches provided the Okie families with a water supply.^[four] Due to this lack of sanitation in these camps, disease ran rampant among the migrant workers and their families. Also contributing to affliction was the fact that these Shanty Town homes that the Okie migrant workers lived in had no running water, and considering of their minimal pay medical attending was out of the question. Nevertheless, what native Californians failed to realize at the time was that these Okie migrant subcontract workers did not e'er alive in the conditions that the Grit Bowl left them in. In fact, frequently these families had once endemic their ain farms and had been able to back up themselves. This had often placed these migrant workers in a relatively comfortable situation for these families prior to the devastating drought (the Grit Basin) in Oklahoma.^[five]

Post-Great Low usage [edit]

Historian James Gregory has explored the long-term impact of the Okies on California gild. He notes that in The Grapes of Wrath, novelist John Steinbeck saw the migrants becoming active union and New Deal agitators demanding higher wages and better housing weather condition. Steinbeck did not foresee that most Okies would movement into well-paid jobs in war industries in the 1940s. When a human named Oliver Carson visited Kern County in the 1930s, he became fascinated with the Okie culture and lifestyle. He travelled back in 1952 to run into what the Okies had made of themselves and saw that the difference was phenomenal. They were non living in roadside encampments anymore or driving run-downwardly cars. They had better living situations and better views on life.^{[half dozen]}

When World War II began, big amounts of coin went flooding to California to help the The states in the war. This was great for the Okies, more jobs, better jobs, opened upward and they were able to make their lives meliorate over time. Other Okies saw this and decided they wanted to go to California to make even more money. An oil worker wanted to make enough money to go back to Oklahoma and purchase a farm, another family wanted to hire out their subcontract while they were away to potentially double their earnings. These families that came during the 1940s lived in California'southward biggest cities, Los Angeles, San Diego and various cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Other families who moved to California before had moved to the valleys and rural areas.^[6]

While many families had plans to go out California after making a good amount of money, they didn't. The children and grandchildren of Okies seldom returned to Oklahoma or farming, and are now concentrated in California'due south cities and suburbs. Long-term cultural impacts include a commitment to evangelical Protestantism, a love of country music, political conservatism, and strong support for traditional moral and cultural values.^{[7] [viii]}

It has been said that some Oklahomans who stayed and lived through the Grit Bowl run across the Okie migrants as quitters who fled Oklahoma. Most Oklahoma natives are as proud of their Okies who made practiced in California every bit are the Okies themselves – and of the Arkies, Westward Texans, and others who were cast in with them.^[9]

In the later one-half of the 20th century, there became increasing bear witness that whatsoever pejorative meaning of the term Okie was changing; former and present Okies began to utilise the label equally a badge of honor and symbol of the Okie survivor attitude.^[10]

In one instance, Republican Oklahoma Governor Dewey F. Bartlett launched a campaign in the 1960s to popularize Okie as a positive term for Oklahomans;^[11] however, the Democrats used the campaign, and the fact that Bartlett was born in Ohio, every bit a political tool against him,^[12] and farther degraded the term for some time.

In 1968, Governor Bartlett fabricated Reddick, the originator of the California usage, an honorary Okie. And in the early 1970s, Merle Haggard'southward country song Okie from Muskogee was a hit on national airwaves. During the 1970s, the term Okie became familiar to nearly Californians as a prototype of a subcultural group, merely like the resurgence of Southern American regionalism and renewal of ethnic American (Irish American, Italian American or Polish American) identities in the Northeast and Midwest states at the time.

In the early on 1990s the California Department of Transportation refused to allow the name of the "Okie Girl" eating place to appear on a roadside sign on Interstate 5, arguing that the eatery's name insulted Oklahomans; but after protracted controversy and a letter from the Governor of Oklahoma did the agency relent.^[13] Since then, the children and grandchildren of Okies in California inverse the meaning of Okie to a cocky-title of pride in obtaining success, as well to challenge what they felt was snobbery or "the concluding group to brand fun of" in the state'due south urban area cultures.

While some Oklahomans refer to themselves as Okies without prejudice, and it is frequently used jocularly, in a manner similar to the use of Yankee by New Englanders or "Cracker" by native Floridians, none of whom consider these terms especially insulting when practical to themselves, others withal find the term highly offensive.

Muskogee Mayor John Tyler Hammons used the phrase "I'1000 proud to be an Okie from Muskogee" as the successful theme of his 2008 mayoral campaign. He was xix years old at the time. 2020 U.S. Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren,^[xiv] who was born in Oklahoma, oft referenced her "Okie" roots during campaign events.^[15]

In popular civilization [edit]

Novels

• John Steinbeck'southward 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath won the Pulitzer Prize for its characterization^[16] of the Okie lifestyle and journey to California.
• In James Blish'south Cities in Flight science fiction series, the term "Okie" was practical in a similar context to entire cities that, thanks to an anti-gravity device, take flight to the stars in order to escape an economic collapse on Globe. Working as a migrant labor strength, these cities act as cultural pollinators, spreading engineering science and knowledge throughout the expanding human civilization. The later novels focus on the travels of New York City as 1 such Okie city, though at that place are many others.
• In the novel On the Road by Jack Kerouac – written between 1948 and 1949, although non published until 1957 – the term appears to refer to some of the people the main character, a New York author, meets in one of his trips around the U.s.a..
• In the novel Paint it Black by Janet Fitch, the protagonist (an LA punk-rocker in the early on 1980s) thinks of herself and her family unit as "Okies."
• Frank Bergon'southward 2011 novel, Jesse's Ghost, draws attention to today'southward sons and daughters of the California Okies portrayed in Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
• Kristin Hannah's 2021 novel The Four Winds portrays the life, struggle and survival of a single mother and her two children during the days post-obit the Great low (1929) and Dust Bowls. She and people like her are often termed as Okies by the Californian natives.
• Sanora Babb's 2004 novel, Who's Names are Unknown is based on the author's offset-hand experience. The novel was originally scheduled to be published in 1939, just publication was shelved when Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath came out. The title is taken from a legal eviction notice.

Music

• April The 14th Role I & Ruination day Part II "And the Okies fled. And the great emancipater" (Time-The Revelator – Gillian Welch. Welch/Rawlings (2001).
• California Okie – Buck Owens (1976).
• Dearest Okie – Doye O'Dell/Rudy Sooter (1948) – "Dear Okie, if you see Arkie, tell 'im Tex's got a task for him out in Californy."
• Israelites & Okies -- The Lost Dogs (from the 2010 album Old Affections).^[17]
• Lonesome Okie Goin' Home – Merl Lindsay and the Oklahoma Night Riders (1947).
• Oakie Boogie – Jack Guthrie and His Oklahomans (1947) – considered by many to be the starting time Rock & Roll song.
• Okanagan Okie – Stompin' Tom Connors.^[18]
• Okie – J. J. Cale (1974).
• Okie From Muskogee – Merle Haggard (from the 1969 album of the same proper name).
• "Okie" – a parody of the above by Patrick Sky from his 1973 album Songs that made America Famous.
• Okie Skies – The Bays Brothers (2004).
• Okies in California – Doye O'Dell (1949).
• Oklahoma Swing-by Reba McEntire and Vince Gill (1990).
• Ramblin' Okie – Terry Fell.
• Southeast Texas Daughter – Jeremy Castle (2021) – "I'm as Okie as a rose rock, native as the red fern grows."

Poetry

• Cahill, Charlie. Point Blank Poetry: Okie Country Cowboy Poems. Midwest Metropolis, OK: CF Cahill, 1991. LoC Control Number: 92179243
• Harrison, Pamela. Okie Chronicles. Cincinnati: David Robert Books, 2005. ISBN 1-932339-87-6
• McDaniel, Wilma Elizabeth. California Okie Poet Laureate. All works.
• Rose, Dorothy. Dustbowl Okie Exodus. Vii Buffaloes Printing, 1987. OCLC 15689360

Other fiction

• Charles, Henry P. That dumbest Okie, and other short stories: Oklahoma! "The state of honest men and slender women." Wetzel, c1952.
• Cuelho, Artie, Jr. At the Rainbow's End: A Dustbowl Collection of Prose and Poesy of the Okie Migration to the San Joaquin Valley. Large Timber, Montana: Seven Buffaloes Press, 1982. ISBN 0-916380-25-four
• Haslam, Gerald. Okies: Selected Stories. Santa Barbara, California: Peregrine Smith, Inc, 1975. ISBN 0-87905-042-X
• Hudson, Lois Phillips. Reapers of the Dust. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1984. ISBN 0-87351-177-8

Come across also [edit]

• Black Sunday
• Dust Bowl
• Grapes of Wrath
• Migrant worker
• Okie Dialect/Southern Drawl/Southern American English
• Hillbilly Highway
• Redneck
• Volition Rogers
• Yokel

References [edit]

Notes

1. ^ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, "Ane or Two Things I Know about United states of america: Rethinking the Prototype and Part of the 'Okies'," Canadian Papers in Rural History 1998 10: xv–43
2. ^ Pryor, Alton (October 27, 2012). Little Known Tales in Oklahoma History. Stagecoach Publishing. p. 55. The migrants included people from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico, but were all referred to as "Okies" and "Arkies."
3. ^ Stewart, Roy P. "Postal Card Proves Sooners Were 'Okies' Fashion Back In 1907," Thomes Mrs. Agnes Hooks of Thomas with a postal card mailed at Newcastle, Ind. in 1907, accost to a Miss Agness Kirkbridge, with the salutation: "Hello Okie – Will see you next Mon nighttime." Signed: Myrtle M. Pence. Mrs. Hooks says Agness Kirkbridge was an aunt of hers. The Kirkbridge family came to Oklahoma Territory in 1904 and settled south of Custer City.
4. ^ DeAngelis, Gina (2003). "Baked Out and Bankrupt: The Okie Migration". Cobblestone. 24 (4).
5. ^ Curtis, James (1986). "Dorothea Lange, Migrant Female parent, and the Civilisation of the Smashing Depression". Winterthur Portfolio. one (21): 1–twenty. doi:10.1086/496257. S2CID 162347932.
6. ^ ^{a b} Gregory, James (1989). American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Civilisation in California. Oxford Academy Press. pp. 174–175.
7. ^ James Due north. Gregory, "Grit Bowl Legacies: The Okie Bear on on California, 1939–1989," California History (1989) 68#3 pp 74–85.
8. ^ James Northward. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (1998)
9. ^ Haslam, The Other California, p. 107: "Says Jim Young, chancellor of Bakersfield Higher, 'I'm proud of my folks and everyone else who came out here and were called Okies, and who fabricated new lives for themselves.' Young, of course, symbolizes well why others in the Fundamental Valley are so proud to claim that term Okie.
10. ^ "State to Impress 'Okie Dough'," The Daily Oklahoman, Thursday, 27 October 1955, p. 20, col. three: "A new type of money, designed to boost Oklahomans' pride in the Sooner land, soon will exist off the press equally function of the Greater Oklahoma City Forwards commission's program. Known as "Okie Dough," the script will too be useful in braging [sic] in the other 47 states."
11. ^ Editorial, "Speaking of Okies," The Daily Oklahoman, June six, 1970, p. eight, col. 1: "Bartlett did not invent the term. He simple recognized its existence in the vocabulary – and gambled that nothing was more likely to erase its stigma than letting outsiders know Sooners themselves rather liked being called Okies."
12. ^ "Democrat Gets In Plug for Donkey," The Daily Oklahoman, Friday, June ii, 1970, p. iii. col. 1: "In a release last week, Kennedy [State Democratic Chairman J.C. Kennedy] charged, the pins were campaign buttons for Gov. Bartlett. He demanded Mon that state employees be instructed to view all Okie-blazon paraphernalia every bit political fabric and that it be treated in accord with state rules and regulations governing such matters."
13. ^ David Colker, "Los Angeles County News in Brief: Quake Delivers Knockout Dial to Okie Girl Eatery," Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1994, Part B, p. 2.
14. ^ Library, C. N. Due north. (9 January 2015). "Elizabeth Warren Fast Facts". CNN . Retrieved 2019-xi-15 .
15. ^ "Warren's rivals have tried for years to brand her as an elitist". Politician . Retrieved 2019-11-15 .
16. ^ Igler, The Human Tradition in California, p. 144: "Charles Schindo, in Dust Basin Migrants in the American Imagination (1997), contended that Steinbeck and his fellow 1930s liberals were elitists who misinterpreted the Okie experience and so imposed that leftist misinterpretation on the American consciousness."
17. ^ "Old Angel".
18. ^ •–•Okanagan Okie•–• Archived February eleven, 2012, at the Wayback Machine

Further reading

• Gregory, James N. American Exodus: The Grit Bowl Migration and Okie Civilisation in California. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-504423-one
• Haslam, Gerald Westward. The Other California: The Great Central Valley in Life and Letters. Academy of Nevada Press, 1993. ISBN 0-87417-225-X
• Igler, David; Clark Davis. The Human Tradition in California. Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. ISBN 0-8420-5027-2
• La Chapelle, Peter. Proud to Be an Okie: Cultural Politics, Country Music, and Migration to Southern California. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. ISBN 0520248899
• Lange, Dorothea; Paul S. Taylor. An American Exodus: A Record of Man Erosion. 1939.
• Morgan, Dan. Rising in the Westward: The True Story of an "Okie" Family from the Not bad Depression through the Regan Years. New York: Knopf, 1992. ISBN 0-394-57453-2
• Ortiz, Roxanne Dunbar. Crimson Clay: Growing up Okie. New York: Verso, 1997. ISBN ane-85984-856-7
• Ortiz, Roxanne Dunbar. "Ane or 2 Things I Know about Usa: Rethinking the Image and Role of the 'Okies'," Canadian Papers in Rural History 1996 ten: fifteen–43
• Shindo, Charles J. Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997. ISBN 978-0-7006-0810-two
• Sonneman, Toby F. Fruit Fields in My Blood: Okie Migrants in the West. Moscow, Idaho: University of Idaho Press, 1992. ISBN 0-89301-152-5
• Weisiger, Marsha L. Country of Plenty: Oklahomans in the Cotton Fields of Arizona, 1933–1942. Norman: Academy of Oklahoma Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8061-2696-5
• Windschuttle, Keith. "Steinbeck'south Myth of the Okies". The New Criterion, Vol. xx, No. ten, June 2002

External links [edit]

• What Happened to Okies Subsequently "The Grapes of Wrath"
• The Okie Legacy – ezine
• An "Okie Knowledge" Quiz from the official spider web page of Oklahoma country authorities
• Embrace your "inner Okie"
• Unidentified Depression Family

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okie

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