Steinbeck's myth of the Okies (Another archtypical liberal myth debunked)

The New Criterion ^ | June 2002 | Keith Windschuttle

[robowombat]

Do liberals and their allies on the left ever do anything but lie?

Here one of the great American statist sob stories "Thr Grapes of Wrath" is dissected and found to be almost entirely fake, lies, oe gross exaggeration from start to finish. "Unfortunately for the reputation of the author, however, there is now an accumulation of sufficient historical, demographic, and climatic data about the 1930s to show that almost everything about the elaborate picture created in the novel is either outright false or exaggerated beyond belief. "

"The real mass migration of Okies to California actually took place in the 1940s to take advantage of the boom in manufacturing jobs during World War II and its aftermath.... It was not the Depression of the 30s but the economic boom of the 40s that caused an abnormal increase in Okie migration"

The great majority of real Okies voted with their feet and went to the private market to buy their own land and build their own houses.

"Rather than a tragedy, the Okie migration was a success story by almost any measure. By 1940, well before the World War II manufacturing boom transformed the Californian economy, a substantial majority of Okies had attained the goals that had brought."

Rather than a proletariat who learned collectivist values during a downward spiral towards immiseration, all the historical evidence points the other way. The many sociological studies made over the last forty years confirm the same picture.

In the 1940s and beyond, the migrants retained their essentially individualist cultural ethos, preserved their evangelical religion, and prospered in their new environment. In popular music, Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads proved a bigger hit with New York bohemians than with California Okies, who much preferred Gene Autry and Merle Haggard. By the 1960s, the Okies and their offspring constituted an important part of the conservative coalition that twice elected Ronald Reagan governor of California."

[Black Agnes]

Interesting read ping!

[aruanan]

However, during the Depression they found themselves victims of Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act, which required landlords to reduce their cotton acreage.

Thanks, once again, FDR, you SOB.

[Ff--150]

Great read--more socialists lies being debunked :o)

[The Great Satan]

Great post: a fascinating deconstruction of entrenched liberal mythos. The pace of these debunkings seems to be on the upswing. From Rachel Carson to Michael Bellesiles, the ideologues of the Left are exposed as liars and fabulists of the first water. Most gratifying to behold!

[Psalm 73]

Great post!!
Although not sure of the facts and figures at the time I read it, I always assumed the truth lay somewhere in-between.
Few writers, though, could put me right in the thick of the story like Steinbeck could - I got absolutely lost for hours at a time while reading "East of Eden"

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for posting! This is so true! I was a victim of this myth until I came to Oklahoma for the first time and my kids then took Oklahoma history.

All I ever heard about Oklahoma was the Oklahoma Sooners and the dust bowl -- I thought Oklahoma was as flat as a pancake and hot and dry!

When I first found out we were being transferred from Kelly AFB, San Antonio (which was closing) to Tinker AFB, OK, I balked because I didn't want to live in a place that was hot, dry, and dusty with the winds blowing all the time.

The first trip my kids and I made up here to go on a househunting trip was a shock to all of us. Their Dad was already living up here and I stayed with my kids in TX to complete the semester. Driving across the Red River, we drove into the Arbuckle Mountains which I had never heard of and then on into Norman -- I was shocked at the mountains, the rolling hills, the trees, and being green! Not anything like I had imagined.

Then my son had to take Oklahoma history and we found out that only that small portion of the OK panhandle was part of the dust bowl. All these years, I had believed Oklahoma was one big wasteland waiting for another dust bowl.

And also discovered that the wind in the summer is a blessing. It makes the days seem cooler and feels great. I live on the more hilly side of Norman with a lot of large trees in the back of the property and is one of the prettiest places I have ever lived.

The one thing I got right was that Norman was home to the University of Oklahoma Sooners and the minute the kids and I stepped foot on Owen Field, we knew Norman was where we were going to live.

Oklahoma City about 20 minutes north of here is a city on the move with the Bricktown Canal, new arena, and a lot of remodeling to already existing structures -- all paid for by tax revenue. There are new hotels, the Bass Pro Shop, and other things on the horizon as this Great State of Oklahoma celebrates its Centennial in 2007!

Very proud to call myself a Sooner and an Okie although a part of me will also be part of the Texas Hill Country.

[beckett]

bump for later read

[Zeroisanumber]

Do liberals and their allies on the left ever do anything but lie?

It's a communist lie, not a liberal lie. And, yes, there is a real difference. I'm also not sure if Stienbeck is guilty of lying as much as he is guilty of sloppy research and wishful thinking; there were more than enough real hard luck stories during the Depression. If anything this article makes it clear that communists hold the "common man" in contempt, believing that "tenant farmer" is short for "slack-jawed moron". As the article proved, farmers carefully planned ahead and took time to research and plan for their trip.

Still, "The Grapes of Wrath" is still one hell of a story, even if it isn't true to life.

[JudyB1938]

I was born in 1938 and lived through some of those times. I entered grade school in 1944. When we were on the playground, we'd watch the dark line on the horizon grow and grow. As soon as the first bits of dust hit us, we'd have to make a beeline for inside. Mostly because it HURT, but also because soon the whole world would be "black", with very limited visibility. That was in Tulsa in the NORTHEAST corner of Oklahoma.

I don't remember exactly what year it was, but we were shown movies of the destruction to the land in Oklahoma and how new plowing techniques were conserving the soil so that such a dust bowl couldn't happen again. We all felt such a pride in the new technology, and the older "rich" kids clamored to enroll in Oklahoma Agriculture College.

President Roosevelt was our hero, because he promised "a chicken in every pot". He gave comfort and made people feel good with his Fireside Chats. (I was devastated in my old age to learn he wasn't quite the person we thought he was.)

There were tent cities and cardboard shacks up on Red Fork Hill and down by the Arkansas River. The singer, Patti Page, was growing up in a boxcar "on the wrong side of the river". And the bums were all over the place, begging for food. Poor people were ashamed to do it, but they had to go stand in line at the soup kitchens if they wanted their babies to eat. The depression were over for a lot of people, but not all of us.

So that's why California was the land of dreams. It was a place where anybody could get a good job and prosper. We knew it was true, because our teachers told us about how people were doing just that. And we saw relatives actually do it.

It was a time when education was normally not within the reach of our parents, but we were encouraged to strive for that high school education, and latch onto the American Dream. Most of us did. And our children have achieved even better things than we did - often the first generation of college-educated within many families.

So, although the Grapes of Wrath may not have been indicative of the entire movement, the "general feeling" of the story DID capture the reality of what happened to some of the Okies who moved west. To deny it is to fall into the trap of Revisionist History! Besides, that book isn't HISTORY ... it's a NOVEL and should be treated as such.

Just thought you all would like to know.

[Mike Darancette]

The happy news is that now many of the "Okie" families that came to California are prosperous owing many farms in the Central Valley.

This proves that the "American Dream" can work if you seek after it actively.

Now many descendants of Mexican migrant farm workers are acquiring land in the Valley.

[Red Jones]

I agree with you. Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was a novel, not history. It portrayed experiences that some americans had at the time. We all know that unemployment went to 35% in the 30's. We all know that one third of banks went bust in a 2 year period of time and that the money supply contracted by one third also during that time. Lots of people who had money deposited in banks lost their money. People were actually going hungry on a large scale back then even though farmers couldn't sell their food. Farmers were hiring people to work charity jobs on their land and paying the workers in terms of food rather than money because the economy did in fact break down.

[vikingchick]

bump

[John O]

It's a communist lie, not a liberal lie. And, yes, there is a real difference

Maybe there used to be a difference but now a liberal is a communist and vice versa. They are all enemies of the US

God Save America (Please)

[Zeroisanumber]

Maybe there used to be a difference but now a liberal is a communist and vice versa. They are all enemies of the US.

Liberals have different ideas about where they want to take this country, but that just makes them opposition, not enemies. Don't demonize your opponents man, it makes you paranoid.

[morjon]

John S. also made a couple trips to the USSR at the peak of the Cold War; a CD of the FBI files on him is available quite often on ebay, I've heard that Hoover's fascination with Steinbeck was obsessive, until MLK came along.

As for JS's writing, it was extremely over-rated, there were so many other authors less to the left that were better during his time-I'd compare him to Spielberg: a couple of very good products early in his career and living off his reputation for the remainder. JMHO.

[LisaFab]

Thanks for sharing a bit of your history. I also agree that the book is a novel but even when I saw the movie as a child the emotive postures that accompanied the Marxist speeches made me uncomfortable. I still wince when I can bring myself to watch it today.

[Grig]

My senior high school english lit class studied Grapes of Wrath, I objected to the anti-religous and communistic themes but the teacher refused to provide an alternative book to study (there was another student in my class who also felt the same way). I just refused to read it (but I had to sit through the discussions in class on it) so my marks took a hit.

Each year in that town was an annual student essay contest in honour of a long-dead local author. Our teacher said that if we entered it he would count it for extra credit, so I entered an essay in the humour essay division that totaly roasted English lit as a pompus sham. I got enough credit to pull my mark back up, and also took 3rd place in the contest! (Mine was actually funnier than the 1st and 2nd place stories, but I made fun of the very contest I was entering too and so they wouldn't dare give it first place)

[John O]

Liberals have different ideas about where they want to take this country, but that just makes them opposition, not enemies. Don't demonize your opponents man, it makes you paranoid.

What do you call someone who wants to destroy everything you believe in, kill the unborn next generation of your countrymen, molest your children and force them into sexual deviancy, deprive you of all your rights and denies that you have the right to defend yourself? I call them enemies.

There are actually two and a half classes of democrats. The first is the terminally stupid. People who wouldn't recognize the truth if it kicked them in the backside. The second is the half class of old line democrats. Those who support the democrats because they see the rats as being who they were in the 40's and 50's. I only count these as half a class because they are too stupid to realize that the party they support has deserted them. The last class are the truly evil. Since the first two groups support the third group I have to see them as evil until they get reformed.

There are two categories of rats. Both spread plague and disease and death. The rodent form is the less dangerous.

God Save America (Please)