Dust bowl migrants in the American imagination

摘要: More than any other event of the 1930s, migration thousands jobless and dispossessed Americans from Dust Bowl states to "promised land" California evokes hardships despair Great Depression. In this innovative new study, Charles Shindo shows how public memory that has been dominated not by academic historians but a handful artists would-be reformers. examines images migrants in photography, fiction, film, song marks off various distances between these representations realities migrant lives. He photographer Dorothea Lange, novelist John Steinbeck, Hollywood filmmaker Ford, folksinger Woody Guthrie, as well folklorists government reformers, sympathized with migrants' plight also appropriated experience further their own aesthetic ideological agendas. The haunted look Lange's "Migrant Mother" photos, powerful story Joad family Steinbeck's Grapes Wrath, Ford's poetic cinematic adaptation novel, gritty plainfolk lyrics Guthrie's Ballads have all combined portray quintessential victims Shindo, however, contends failed fully grasp "Okie" culture seemed far more concerned promoting views agendas themselves might found inaccurate or unappealing. Shindo's study us art can dominate history popular mind illuminates ways which blend aesthetics politics make personal statement about human condition. His book only increases our understanding tragic era American expands scope current histories West include cultural importance.