Archival Vintages for

The GRAPES of W4H' :!At the beginning of John Steinbeck's perennially popular (and still controversial) masterwork, The Grapes of Wrath, two dedication lines appear: "to Carol who willed it" and "to Tom who lived it." Carol, of course, was the author's wife, who originated the title for Steinbeck. Most readers logically assume that the second line targets Tom Joad, the archetypal protagonist whose shade still walks the land "wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat." But the line actually refers to Thomas E. Collins-a nonfictional "character" whose ghost would likely be found walking right alongside that of Tom Joad. There are significant relationships between the worlds of "the two Toms." First, the real Tom Collins steps over into The Grapes of Wrath as the model for the character "Jim Rawley" in chapters 22-26. But in addition, both Steinbeck and his biographers have acknowledged a major influence that flowed into the novel from a wealth of federal documentary source material provided by Collins. Most of the latter is preserved and available for public research today as a unique, absorbing, somewhat "quirky" treasure held by the National Archives-Pacific Region (San Francisco): the narrative reports, mostly 1935-1936, of California fedr

igrantla!bor camp manager Tom Collins.

Left and above: The Kern Migrants Camp in Kern County, in southern California, was one of 18 camps established by the Resettlement Administration beginning in 1935 to assist the thousands of refugee families who left the harsh agricultural conditions of Oklahoma, southwestern Missouri, central Texas, and western Arkansas.

As the 75-year remembrance of the New D)eal period passes into the 70th anniversary for 775e (Grapesoq Wrath, it seems a good time to again visit these "Tom Collins documents," which in a rare occurrence for government reports, were regarded as "worthy literature" by no less an expert than Steinbeck himself. ()kic Migrants and Federal ( amps in ( aliforflia In 1936, when he met Steinbeck, Tom Collins managed the Resettlement Administration's Arvin/Weedpatch federal "Migratory l1abor Camp" for migrant agricultural laborers in Kern County in southern California. "Weedpatch camp" appears in Tlhe Grapes q1Wrath in chapters 22, 24, and 26. lhe"campers"atWeedpatch were among thousands of mostly rural D)ust Bowl refugee families newly arrived in California in search of farm-related work. They came mostly from Oklahoma, southwestern Missouri, central Texas, and western Arkansas. Most were victims in one way or another of a crop-killing 10-year drought

Archival Vintages for The Grapes ofWrath

or "tractoring out" (farmni mechanization), rather than of the terrible Dust Bowl storms per se, which struck a little farther west. Most had been farm laborers, tenant farmers, or sharecroppers; there were also some small farm holders and others. Stereotyped by mainstream resident Californians as "Okies" or "Arkies," these newcomers furnished a new and major source for traditionally subsistence-level migrant agricultural labor, harvesting fruit, vegetable, and cotton crops in verdant well-irrigated central California valleys dominated by the large, often corporate-owned agribusiness operations described by Carey McWilliams in his renowned study, Factories in the Field. Since the latter 1800s, white "fruittramps/bindlestiffs" and various ethnic minorities--Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, Mexican, and Filipino-had served as seasonal "migrant armies" fated to harvest large-scale California farm crops.All had faced exploitation, meager pay, and severe living conditions. But generally, they had truly "come with the dust and

gone with the wind," moving on after the harvests. In contrast, the 1930s Okie migrant influx brought entire families that, having nowhere else to go, remained in the valleys during times of scarce or no employment, generating consternation among valley residents and further straining state and local social services already stressed by the Depression. As noted by historian James Gregory in his classic American Exodius, the agricul-

tural labor Okies comprised only a portion of a much larger stream of nearly 1,300,000 emigrants to California from the southwestern southern states during 1910-1950. Many arrived in less desperate straits and adapted more easily to their new, sometimes urban surroundings. Still, the thousands of California migrant labor tamilies chronicled by Steinbeck, C(ollins, Sanora Babb, and others, had it very bad-sometimes far worse than the Joads. The destitute Okie agricultural migrants had been drawn to California by hopes for employment or even a new start on smallholding farm o-v nership.Word-of-motith fur nished much of the inpetLIs, and there is evi-

IPrologue 19

dence Arizona had miore to do than California with the cross-country lure of grower-pro-

duced ads and hlidbills as portrayed in The Grapes of Wralh. At any rate, there is no doubt that during the 1930s, large California growers took advantage of a huge bulge on the supply side"of agricuIR1'al labor to drive down wages. Okic migrant income hovered aro1nnd and sometimes descended below bare subsistence levels, and that was for the "lucky ones"who found employment. At one point, for every available crop-picking job at even the most meager recompense, there were 3 to 10 workers who needed it.

In 1935, with Tom Collins playing a major setOup role, the Resettlement Administration (RA, Farm Security Administration [FSA] as of 1937) established a chain of tederal "Migratory (migrant) Labor Camps" up and down California's agricultural valleys. At their peak just before World War II, 18 camps, including 3 "mobiles"-from Brawley in the south to Yuba City in the northfeatured sanitary, low-cost, and very basic living facilities (mostly tent sites) for migrant labor families. Poptilations could reach around 500 or more per camp,

Early on, opposition from powerful growers' organizations, as well as lack of support

from the federal sector, divested the RA/FSAXs regional office in Berkeley of any hope of accommodating the entire California migrant farm labor population in federal camps. The agency fell back toward more limited aims: to demonstrate to both the growers and California at large that it was possible and advisable to provide low-cost, relatively humane living conditions for migrant workers and their families and that there was no basis for common tendencies to bnnd the newly arrived migrant population in California with such terms as"morally degenerate,' intrinsically "uncivilized," etc. For Okie residents, the camps strove to provide health services and education, comMnUnity, and a road toward "depolarization" with hostile mainstream Californians. The federal camps served as comparative oases of health, human dignity, and relief from the often inhumanly degrading conditions prevailing elsewhere. Steinbeck, Collins, and Migrants Collins and the migrant laborer families at the Resettlement Administration's Arvin/ Weedpatch federal camp hosted several Steinbeck visits beginning around August 1936, when the author jouneyed from his

Los Gatos home to do fieldwork for the seven-part San Francisco News series "Harvest Gypsies." But their relationship did not stop at Weedpatch. With the approval of the RA/FSA regional office in Berkeley, Collins also served as Steinbeck's primary "migrant liaison" at various times between 1936 and 1938. The two traveled up and down the San Joaquin valley in Steinbeck's legendary "old pie wagon," gathering information and offering aid in several crisis situations. During this period, Steinbeck's nonfictional portrayals of migrant squatter camp conditions were grim, stark, and shocking. The innovative federal photojournalism of Dorothea Lange and others, "on the road" for the RA/FSA starting in the mid 1930s, captured for the public eye unforgettably haunting, dramatic images of destitute Okie families: journeying in often ramshackle "jalopy caravans" along their "desolation road" to California (Route 66) or "wasting away" within the shockingly squalid California ad-hoc irrigation ditchbank squatter camps and "Hoovervilles." Previously, the mostly non-European minority migrant labor force in California had been exploited and "expected" to accept

The story of this family of 10, who arrived at Arvin Camp on April 23, 1936, was featured by Tom Collins in his weekly report on July 25. Collins noted their poverty and that "the fellow had been a farmer" until "drought conditions broke his morale and removed all hope of a bright or normal future for his family."

20 PIrologuc

Winter 2008

living standards lar below the median for most Americans. But most of Amcrica had

never actually "seen themnf-espccially like this. Publicity relating to the Okie migrant plight took hold and spread through the local and national media. By mid- 1938, fedCe1l cur1tailmenti ofC alifornia cotton acreage and related reduction in employment opporItInity, a continuing influx of farm jolb-seekers, severe flooding, resultant deprivation, and vivid documentation made the peaking "( alilornia Okic crisis" into continuous frontpage news. Ihis helped "Wprime the pump" for the explosive sales of the novel The Gtrapes (fW#'roth upon publication in 1939 and for the popularity of the John Ford illovic version in 1940i.

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In many respects kindred spirits, Stein-

beck and Collins shared a commitment to the uphill light to better ()kie migrant laborer and falmily living conditions. The situation was often dismal enough at the growerowned camps they visited. But at the ditchbank"sultILItter casll)S"and Hoovervilles,conditions had descended to depths hard to acki owledge. Steinbeck and Collins saw, documented, and toiled to alleviate mind-nlumtbing, spirit-killing poverty, squalor, epidemic disease, malnutrition, and outright starvation among a vast valley assemblage of least I100,000 (historical estimates vary)-often lacking even subsistence in the most abundant "fi)od-baslei "of thie nation. ID)uring Steinbeck's San Joaquin valley migrant journey)s with Collins, the) toiled and lived alongside destitute migrant labor families as well as rendered emergency assistan(e. Efforts culminated in a twoweek mission, with the two "dropping in the mud from exhaustion" while trying to resCLICe i,00-5,00)0 squatter camp fami-

lies stranded during the terrible Visalia-

Nipomo floods of February 1938-"not just hungry but actually starving" as noted by Steinbeck. According to Robert De Mott, this horrific experience, etched in acid upon Stcinbeck's consciousness,galvanized his commitment to 7he Grapes oqlWrath. While at work on the hatter, Steinbeck had athis side Collins's official federal niarrative reports aIswell as correspondence. Previously, Stcinbeck had tried to aid Collins il an unfulfilled effort to get them published, even doing some editing work.

Archival Vintages for The Grapes ofWrath

JohnSteirec (top) rsearhet d thew imoeihdcniin fmgatfmlies atteAvn epthfdrlcm an totherw loatios fwo hi er ewsaper seie"Hres t Gyses"o Colin (aoe eve sSenecs"irn liio"at tmsbten13 and13.I c am p eot C lisisetdacpyoh ete etb tecm' Cetral C m iteepesn prcain o tibc' fot lf)

In 1936 Steinbeck declared to writer and friend George Albee: "Now tm working hard on another book which isn't mine at aill. I'm only editing it but it is a fine thing. A complete social study made of the weekly reports from a migrant camp." As time passed, all other projects gave way to The Grapes o/Wrath. But there are indications that Steinbeck believed that basing many of his fictional California migrant scenes and contexts on nonfictional documents like the Collins reports might help when the firestorm of criticism rained down following publication of his novel. Notable for its duration and intensity, the backlash featured such events as "book-burnings in Bakersfield." The Reports

Prominent Stcinbeck biographers and California Dust Bowl migrant historians, not to mention numerous thesis-writers,

have come to the National Archives-Pacific Region (San Francisco) to research the Collins reports and related records of the Farmers Home Administration (Record Group 96). Steinbcck biographer Jackson J. Benson "rediscovered" the 1930s FSA

migrant camp reports there during an early 19 7 0s quest to find and write more about

Tom Collins. Thanks mostly to Benson's clogged biographical detective work, we know that the federal migrant labor camp period was likely the high point of Collins's far from run-of-

mill life. Born out of wedlock, raised in a Catholic orphanage, and drawna it one point

toward priesthood, Collins listed his educational background as fotr years at prep school plus a year at a possible "diploma mill" teachers college from which, when convenient, he claimed to have received a doctorate. During the early 1920s, he worked as supervisor/organizer of public

g,- l

21

schools at the Guam Naval Station. He also traversed the Amazon jungle with his young

ex-socialite wife (the second of three) while fleeing from her family's lawyers. He came to the Resettlement Administration in 1935 from a job as director and organizer of shelters and labor camps for the Federal Transient Service in San Diego County and LosAngeles. In his June 1935 job application, Collins recorded a sadient attribute: "1have the ability to ... successfu|lly handle people without coercion or force." Wearing the face turned toward his RA/ FSA superiors when writing the reports, Collins sometimes commented on low levels of intelligence for certain adult migrant individuals or groups, especially in comparison with their own children. He remarked on major initial "learning difficulties" especially regarding hygienic education. In his view, these were attributable mainly to the sociocultural/psychological trauma stemming from prolonged deprivation. His anecdotes about the migrants sometimes made light of what he regarded as primitive, superstitious and/or ignorant beliefs anId customs. Sometimes the comments sounded like laughing at, not with-though he also laughed at himself. Collins's reports also document some unsavory migrant behav-

ior such as wife-beating (or occasionally vice-versa). His usual laissez-faire position: "A man's tent is his farm." Some references can be seen as condescending, such as "these simple, honest, full-hearted, deserving people." But Collins saved his special scorn for less honest, more convoluted, and sparse-hearted folk such as exploitive growers, educated nosein-air social workers, and "His Satanic Majesty, Caesar Augustus Hearst" (William Randolph Hearst). Some recent historians have accused Collins, Steinbeck, Lange, and others of seeing Okie migrants through a lens distorted by urban elitist liberal "reform agendas" while neglecting to attend to and preserve authentic Okie culture.This view seems not to recognize that the real foundational concern of these three-the need for relief from sustained socioeconomic trauma and severe human misery-is a precondition for cultural survival and recovery The reports as a whole, as well as accounts of his managerial conduct by firsthand observers, reveal a complex and mainly constructive portrait of Collins. Regarding his behavior toward the migrants, quick-spotters of insincerity and hypocrisy, he noted in an earlyAugust 1935 report that

Tom Collins with a migrant mother and child at the Arvin camp. Collins chose to live and work in close, constant, and deliberately visible personal contact with migrant camp residents, emphasizing neighborliness through friendly instruction, suggestion, and encouragement,

22 P'rologue

he was "on the spot at all times." Shedding bureaucratic trappings, Collins chose to live and work in close, constant, extensive, and deliberately visible personal contact with migrant camp residents, where "one false move, and he loses the confidence and respect of the campers." With the migrants, Collins combined the straightforward aspect of the "plain-folks American" with a daunting regimen of 24/7 on-call caring and public service. In a short piece included in America and Americans, Steinbeck gave some insight into Collins's dedication: The first time I saw Windsor Drake [Collins] it was evening, and it was raining.... I drove into the migrant camp, the wheels of my car throwing muddy water. The lines of sodden, dripping tents stretched away from me in the darkness. The temporary office was crowded with damp men and women ... and sitting at a littered table was Windsor Drake, a little man in a damp, frayed white suit.The crowding people looked at him all the time ... his large, dark eyes, tired beyond sleepiness .... There was an epidemic in the camp-in the muddy, flooded camp ... every kind of winter disease had developed: measles and whooping cough; mumps, pneumonia, and throat infections. And the little man was trying to do everything. He had to.... For Okie farm migrants reeling from the terrible treatment meted out elsewhere in California, the experience of Collin's "neighborly" caring manner, dedication, and public "servant-leadership" must have come as a dramatic, welcome contrast. It may have generated a sort of "positive culture shock" that partly explains FSA migrant camper receptivity to his guidance during 1935-1936. At any rate, it earned him a tremendous reservoir of credibility with Marysville and then Weedpatch migrant labor camp residents. He tapped into this with great effect while using tactfully packaged instruction, friendly suggestion and encouragement, and the attitude of the "Good Neighbor" (his signature phrase) to foster individual, family, and camp community democratic

Winter 2008

self-help programs in health, hygiene, nutrition, baby and child care, education, daily government/law enforcement, and recreation. Time and time again in the reports, Collins conveyed respect, esteem, and faith that the destitute, despised migrant Okie families, given a place to stand and a chance, were capable of conduct at least on and perhaps above the level of the mainstream California society that had so far brutalized them. Combined with Collins's management style and programs, the minimal amenities atWeedpatch camp furnished the foundation for a gently guided, generous, high-standards, self-governing "community of caring" atArvin/Weedpatch. This amazed visiting farmers, politicians, social workers, and others who had previously believed migrant Okies to be inherently incapable of such achievements. Steinbeck, his sympathies already with the migrants, was also mightily imlpressed. Collins's views of migrant capabilities evolved alongside their own story of recovery at his prototypical camps. In September 1935 at Marysville, he had found it "very gratifying to see what we can do fbr these people simply through ... giving them some voice in the camp routine ...they do very well under proper supervision and guidance." A year later in October 1936, Collins observed that the migrant Okie community at Weedpatch camp had, even during "down times" of scarce employment,"demonstrated beyond a doubt just how little they need us down here to manage their affairs." The reports follow a form fairly consistent with the "Instructions to Camp Managers" approved by initial regional RA/ FSA camp community manager Irving W Wood, but which Collins at least had a hand in writing. Usually written and sent to the regional office weekly or biweekly if things got too busy, the Collins reports usually contained most of the following interesting components: 1. Statistics: Reports noted the number of resident camp families and individuals, illnesses, destitute persons, persons dismissed from camp (with reasons), referred to other agencies, employed,

Archival Vintages for The G rapes o fWrath

unemployed, children at camp, treated at camp first aid stations, and children by school grades. They also recorded the classification and number of camper families by state of origin and by occupation. In addition, Collins noted the number checking in and checking out, sometimes with notes on local travel origins and destinations. Oklahoman migrant families always won hands down in terms of Weedpatch camp population. A September 1936 report recorded "Oklahoma 56, Arkansas 4, Texas 8, Missouri 6, California 7," and a few each from eight other states. Similarly, farm labor outpaced all other pre-California occupations, as in "Farm Laborers 63, farm renters 10, farm owners, 8' and one to three for assorted others. 2. Types, rates paid, and notes for any employment, such as: "Fruit picking. Wage rates $.25 per hour.Average weekly earnings $15.00 based on 10 hour day" (July 1936). 3. Commentary on the labor conditions including employment, labor supply and de-2 mand, grower practices, worker reactions, unrest, disputes, and strike situations.• 4. Notes on migrant living conditions at the federal camps and also the

off-site local, grower-

bE

owned, private fee, and ditchbank squatter camps/Hoovervilles. The Arvin camp's self-help programs in health, hygiene, nutrition, and baby and child care were of special significance in a

.

setting where disease often spread rapidly. Collins's report of July II, 1936, for example, noted the number of children in camp and the illnesses for that week and their treatment.

:

5. Sections about camp organization, government, and programs for health, education and recreation. Collins was an advocate and the chief on-the-ground architect of what Regional Director of [migrant camp] Management Eric Thomsen called "functional democracy" as a way to run the camps. By various noncoercive methods, federal managers were to educate, encourage, and empower the migrant residents to govern themselves in most daily affairs through elected camp committees. This approach worked very well for Collins in 1936, though much less so

with some other managers atnd espenic minorities (and mostly concerned with the "offic ialese" of most constrained, graycially after 1937, when FSA des tabilized "blaming the poor") landed in this instance scale gov,ernment reports. Collins's creative the situation by mandating shotrter stays on destitute white, old-stock ruralAmerican latitude h ncluded both ad hoc headings and and more frequent turnovers of camp Protestants slotted into the lowest rung on no-holds- barred candid, opinionated comresidency tor migrant families. the "California caste ladder" -migrant farm mentary, as in the following under "Labor, 6. Newspaper clippings with c onnllenlaborers. The stereotypical slurs--inhercontinue d (September, 1936):" tary and a log of visitors and ccontacts. ently dirty, lan,,stupid, immoral, shiftless, parFrom the latter we know, for instance, asitic, welfare chiselers, fundamentally incaThe SIhadow of Associated Farmersthat Steinbeck visited We edpatch pable of joining mainstream American the Hi dden Hand camp in August 1936. civilization -tell us much about the Rumt ors are now afloat that the Asso7. Ili addition, the reports of Co Ilins and sociopathology of prejudice and nothing ciated Farmers and the Cotton Finance several "disciples" also containe •d"bits of about the groups victimnized. Contro I agencies have been circulating migrant wisdom" relating through the valley in an effort observations and anecdotes to have the larger growers and about goings-on among the others pay a cotton-picking Kern Migrat-y J-ar ýI residents. Though some scale between $.60 and $.80 vignettes can admittcdIly be per cwt [hundred-weight] .This a wsema at Ari' let har pat oeato Adwrtie seen as demeaning, the re"u --- tin•dar picesa retrnae A .a-p-r tdld is the advance guard preparing he ted the anll sashd tO a pip 1an& the read nisar keia, Ta want te the wosian sai tel her at his ports overall show an Unfor the general price-fixing sesfind. linen she saedsup he hed net troauht the dat (a) aleg wath hi" (he ý dd net tell her it sa derlying respect, sometimes aaaleit sion to be held at Fresno, rplidyJ .a I eases. t.r t-11 Yer par d-6 inbiable ht it bordering on "romantic revrt rtrnbl,ý. California on September 8, 5 Whe & wflsla fls hears, heIn ini the he-ci dat erence," for a straightfor1936. •oalin his en the streat, Yea aint never see biw (i) ekik a ,illPa11, Wf' w is st like t6 he'-n gu. ward, resourceful people de,% bl b Ai1 twi a ste-iF Thl" fells who stubbornly persevere, Items like the above would 1fee t.G -aa-at ate all sareed ni taing part ib elasti asatity sIngs in the vrins tants at somehow keeping hope have been of great interest to Ca) aetsasa Ilar's te'sk In ,itu a ýsasdthe4 alive in the face of chalSteinbeck, who believed that lenges far more harrowing Associated Farmers, the pow( )) the a tan -wp. r. tat t,eenn•an bs' e neser -lnnlstw mmatns -nntdý,seheel lsIJ.ts theeScsyn h than those faced by the"avererful large growers lobbying lasses'• -4"ies "lrdee all areatarsa af the All 5 age American."' The reports at seed, ,•are pet the trTe salt a ent,i organization not particularly 5 (a) S•ep ebaia tinse herea ertd mats thai nasager teature transcriptions of disguised as the "Farmers Asna get hi ar l ht. migrant poetry songs, letters, sociation" in The Grapes of (f) de a raentt at eve- clets ta thw vera•in tiats fea and conversations. Wrath, were after him as their "public enemy number one." Collins often tried to capBehind Collins's unique GIts• at hense •xad olna natrait, ture the regional flavor of Te ne-Idi nni• report stylings, there must "Okic dialect." Compared to have been purpose. An eduSteinbeck, Collins exaggerates, cated guess would be that he with frequent gratuitous mishoped to: capture and hold spellings, as in a February 1936 the interest of regional and example: "When we aswallas higher RA/FSA and other offiCollins regularly tried to capture the regional flavor of"MigrantWisdom" in his reports, including its dialecL insights, and humor. His entries conveyed respect, esteem, and faith the last been our innards will cials; buttress precarious fedin the migrants, who were victims of negative popular stereotypes. haf ter shak the disc ter see eral support and funding for who agits it." Still, (omllins's atthe migrant camp program by "Respectable visitors" to Weedpatch highlight ing spectacular challenges and tempts may have influenced tl le more ndition. camp, from large growers to social workachieverr muted and readable Steinbeck rc ",Pretty." ers, often confessed near-disbrlief at the entertaintents; as part of the latter, provide For instance, b0th use -purty" for ing PR copy for RA/FSA; and exemplary levels of conduct "these primfamiliariz e readers with the California agriOne of the prime educational iatues of lp show itive people" had achieved there in a very c ultural a the Collins reports is that they he abor scene. Iaand culshort time. the fundamental falseness of racial Finally, what stands out about the reports . nflueni tural prejudice. :es on Steinbeck Sources, is Corlins's literuegand antibureaucratic style Steia bo Along with other contemporary eck spent considerable time with s" of negof government narrative report writing. He Collins a they document how "standard set te Anglowent to lengths (sometimes 20-30 pages) patch ca nd among the migrants at Weedative stereotypes associated by th rithethand took liberties to inject colors far beyond section omp and elsewhere.The California American mainstream of the day .f The Grapes of Wrath therefore

24 Prolopic

Winter 2008

bcars ihe stamp of lnincrous conversations as well as events and characters seen firsthand. In addition, as Benson notes,"There were deeper influences flowing froom the

both had fiaith that our democratic institu-

novel-from small farmer protests against large grower coercion aimed at cutting migrant wages, to the price for a cottonpicking sack if you have none. Sometimes these were inserted whole-cloth into The Grapes o] Wrath, but more often they were reconfigured or "built-out" to serve the crcative purposes of the novel. The Collins report items also have an absorbing "story life" apart from The

tions, through the pressure of an enlight-

Grapes o?f Wrath. This storytelling strength

(IeId citizenry, Could and would conquer the inequities that appeared to be tearing

is likely another reason the reports appealed to Steinbeck.

camnp manager to the author: influences of

spirit, emotion, and attitude, which are difficult to metasure or locate precisely ...both had a knack for getting close to ordinary

people and winning their confidence ...

"Reverend Georgie," the "tIflyo One, whom he hired as his housekeeper. Her description does not match that of Steinbeck's grim fundamentalist who terrorizes Rose of Sharon at the camp; rather, Georgie is depicted more as a voluble "space-cadet." Her saga begins in a Max 1936 report and ends in September as she and her part-Cherokee husband, Noah, having recently launched their Ark of Love," move on. CoRins records (ieorgie's hobbies, perhaps in priority order: "1. entertaining visitors at manager's house, 2. having her husband rock her before he

the fabric of society apart." Ilaving the body of reports at his side also furnished Stcinbeck with an extensive, rich documentary context for the imaginalive surround in which he built the (alifornnia section of the novel. The reports contitined numerous portraits of labor conditions, domestic life, migrant character, "characters," and such significant components of Weedpatch catnp life as the governing committees elected by campers. The comnmittees were numerous, but three chronicled repeatedly in the reports appear in 11W Grapes o? Wrath.The Centrat

Committee saw to all-camp matters such as law and order, basic upkeep, and employmncnt aid for the campers. The Good Neighbors Committee ("Ladies Conmmittee"

in Steinbeck) visited all tents to welcome new women and families, helped with sustenanc'e, and introduced them to sanitary

facilities and child-centered resources such as the clinic, nu,sery, and playground. The Recreation Committee arranged for such events as baseball games with nearby settlements or fairms ais well as the orderly, liquorlcss, camper-policed "best dances in the county" featured in the novel. As Collins intended, such activities, besides boosting camp morale, helped break down barriers between the migrant campers and surrounding conmmnunities. This led to more

jobs with growers who had previously vilified the FSA camps (filled with highly patriotic Okies) as" red-inltcstcd." He was pleased to report instances when campers

passed

beyond the migrant agricultural cycle altogether and left for steady, long-term employment ill the towns.

Th' reports feature numerous "items," from major to minute, that appear in the

Archival Vintiges for The Gropes of Wrath

A thoughtful young migratory worker at the Arvin camp, evocative of the "plain-folks" and their humanity colorfully documented in Collins's reports and fictionalized in Steinbeck's The Gropes of'Wrath.

As one might expect, chapters 22 and 24 of The Grapes of Wrath-set mostly at the

Weedpatch camp-contain the highest numhers of items correlated to (ollins reports, though they appear elsewhere as well.The following are a few selected examples. In chapter 8, Granma Joad exclaims, "Praise God forVittorv!" Collins records use of this phrase in April 1936 as the standard ending f)r letters to "folks back hum" he is typing for Weedpatch women campers. But it is also the signature declamation of

goes to work and for hours after he returns, 3. saving souls through her preaching, 4. holding revival services anywhere, anytime, 5.TALKING, and 6. Housekeeper"

"No cops" are allowed in Weedpatch camp without a warrant, finds Tom Joad to his relief (chapter 22). This policy is specified in the August 1935 "Instructions to Camp Managers." "We won't have no charity," says Jessie of the Weedpatch Ladies Committee (chapter 22). The characteristic Okie aver-

P'rologue 25

sion to accepting charity or relief-the spotless contrast to the festering situation Early on at the Marysville migrant camp opposite of the stereotype--recurs in at squatter, private fee, and many grower in 1935, Collins reports that "Complaints both Collins and Steinbeck. In February camps. Collins reports that by July 1936, regarding drinking, gambling, and unneces1936 Collins quotes the Okie consensus: Weedpatch resident women have taken sary noise late at night all appear to be things "jest as well haf all our teeth yanked out over much of the clinic, nurse visit, nutriof the past since the campers committee as ter go sit down, tell our life's history and tional, first aid, and well-babies program entered the picture." But later at Weedpatch, ask for relief. Culd we only git a job for work, lessening his own toils. he notes an instance of "pappy rolling about that's all we wants. We's able ter wuk and Rose of Sharon mentions how "I'm to in a dry ditch. Beside him was an empty bottle of gin ... we appreciated the fact that he wants to wuk." go see that nurse and she'll tell me jus' In the "croquet mallet incident," Ruthie left camp to have his big snort of liquor:' The what to do so the baby'll be strong ... all novel mentions two such "solitary ditchJoad snatches a croquet mallet from another the ladies here do that" (chapter 24). There are numerous mentions in the girl, acts tough, and cries afterward (chapter bank drunks,' the first involving Uncle John 22). In Collins, a very young newlywed does reports of the well-baby program and Joad (chapters 20 and 23). the mallet-snatching; the "crying" part may how resident camp mothers embrace it. The reports are also laced with Okie humor, as in this example from a January come from a May 1936 report item in which Collins, who cared most deeply about the Collins arranges and pays for a birthday party children, seems to have especially loved 1936 report:"With Roosevelt, we hunts our dealing with infants. In August 1936, he hosted by "the toughest kid in camp ... we jack rabbits and milks 'em and turns 'em celebrates Raymond, the "Perfect Baby": loose again to catch again when we needs have seen her tackle three and four at a time 'em."A similar Okie "jack rabbit fantasy" can and 'clean tip."' "Raymond seldom cries. He is always Ruthie accidentally flushes a toilet and smiling .... Many times he sits on our desk be found in Steinbeck's chapter 27. Regarding character, Collins seems to be fears she's broken it (chapter 22). This incias we go about the routine office work. dent appears in a Collins report from At other times we can be found on the talking about Ma Joad's strength (and Pa October 1935.Throughout the reports, toisewing project floor keeping Raymond Joad's protests) when he notes that" during let, shower, and similar "plumbing hijinx" busy while his mama runs a new suit of times of unemployment ... the woman occur due to unfamiliarity of some rural steps in as Master of the House."And Tom jumpers . . . on the electric sewing migrant campers with basic modern sanita- machine.What a baby!" Joad's instinctive bent to challenge head-on tion technologyThe committee sugand strip away the puffery of AIn others resonates with report gestion of a "toilet paper dispenser items like the following, in that rings a bell" transfers from which a migrant faces down a Collins (May 1936) to Steinbeck. "pusher" trying to cut pay by Much more serious are Collins's force-speeding the pace of work. repeated battles with deadly disease outbreaks, especially among Pusher: "You pack 15 boxes a children, caused by the unfamiliarday OR ELSE." Camper: "I been ity of some rural people with basic wuking here for 2 years, an I hygienic theory and practice, horrid conditions at the squatter and ain't had no one tell me I loafs on the job .... I ain't gonna pack grower camps, and sometimes the traumatic migrant shock and 15 boxes because I ain't gonna fatigue reported by Collins, Steinput rotten grapes in these beck, historian Walter Stein, and boxes to ship ... so OR ELSETO th YOU AND LIKE IT I ain't gonna others. At a Hooverville in chapter 18, Ma Joad notes, "we ain't never quit.. .so what's your other OR ELSE?" been dirty like this ... I wonder why? Seems like the heart's took Steinbeck biographers note out of us." that partial inspiration for Tom Echoing numerous migrant sentiments recorded in the reports, Joad may have come from a Tulare FSA camp fugitive son of Ma Joad and Rose of Sharon appreciate Weedpatch camp's hot water Weedpatch Camp Central Committee chairman Sherman and laundry, washing, and bathing E. Eastom, a bronze-faced, facilities. Due to opportunities for Above : Collins's report of May 23, 1936, details some of the sppecial proand the efforts of the migrants, the grams for the camp's 100 children, divided by age groups, in whhich mothwidely respected, no-nonsense figure. Eastom's "eyes that miss FSA camps generally furnished a ers took part.

26 P'rologue

Winter 2008

nothing" in Collins become "eyes like little NOTE ON SOI IRCES

blades" for committee chair Ezra liuston in

TbW G'rap(es f/Wralh. In 1937 Tonm Collins Weedpatch

left Arvin/

"to act as traveling Field

Superintendent out of the Regional Office

to be ready on short notice to . , and a enter into the organization and management of any new camp, as ordered,' a position also known as "Community Manager at Iarge."After stints at Gridley,Thornton, and Calpatria, his luster evidently dimmed. Again a camp manager in 1940, he resigned from the FSA in 1941, having recently received $ 15,000 as technical director for the Grapes ol[Wrath movie. The currency Of "functional democracy" and the Collins community method also faded as economic conditions and pay improved, defense jobs opened tip, FSA camp populations became more transient, and (Collins-school "servant-leaders" gave way to managers accustomed to niore bureaucracy and social distance between themselves and their clients. Steinbeck might have been disappointed to visit later camps where most residents were indifferent to clique-ish committees, or where camllpers charged managers with "I litlerism." By 194#0, California was on the way to ramping tip industrially and otherwise for World War II. Over the next few years, pay and detense-related employment in Cali lornia lo1lowed suit.With the"War Deal," the l)epression came to an end, taking with it the (California Okic migrant crisis. I lowcver, the Grapes (?1Wrath lives on and on. and with it, that special sense of a greatet; deeply human whole that comprises a sizable portion of the legacy of not only John Steinbeck but also Tomt Collins. For a time at least, as Steinbeck noted when writing it, '1'om actually "lived it." That spirit shines through in the words of Robert Ilardie, a (Collins "disciple" selected to replace him as Weedpatch camp manager. Presaging MaJoad's memorable words from chapter 20-hrought forward to conclude ,John Ford's 1940 movie-Hardic declares in his report for the week of Christmas 1936: "Mit come what may-we'll find a way through this thing-for we are the Americaii people."i

Archival Vintages for The Grapes ofWrath

The Records of the Farmers Home Administration (Record Group 96) at the National Archives-Pacific Region (San Francisco) contain records of the Farm Security Administration (1937-1946) and of the Resettlement Administration (1935-1937). FSA/RA's Region IX Office in Berkeley/San Francisco compiled Coded (Migrant Labor) Camp Administrative Files, 1933-1945, arranged by migrant camp code and thereunder by subject file code. Arvin (Weedpatch) code 918-01 includes the Weekly Narrative Reports of Tom Collins, 1935-1936. A table of more than 30 correlated"item links" between the Tom Collins records and The Grapes of Wrath can be found in the footnoted online version of this article available at www.arcbives.gov/ publications/prologuel, The Official Personnel File of Thomas E. Collins, 1922-1942, is at NARA's National Personnel Records Center,Civilian Personnel, St. Louis, Missouri. Misapplications of federal field office records management,usually due to ignorance,were common during the 1940s through 1960s. In the past, federal records of FSA/RA regional officials were donated to the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley (in violation of the Federal Records Act), where they remain today. The collections of federal records researched there for this article include the Harry Everett Drobish Papers, 1917-1954, BANC MSS C-B 529;the RalphW Hollenberg collection of materials relating to the Farm SecurityAdministration, Region IX, 1924-1949,BANC MSS C-R 1 Series 2;and the Irving W Wood Papers, 1934-1937, Mss 77/111C. Also researched were papers on UC Berkeley Professor Paul SchusterTaylor, Papers, 1660-1997, Mss 84/38 c. Negative "racial-cultural" stereotypes of the California Okie migrants appeared in the texts of numerous newspaper articles duinng the Depression. One somewhat offbeat example comes from "Disease Threat Seen in Transient Camps," OaklandTribune, July 24 1937:"As Mrs.Joan Pratt, county welfare department explains,'You can't change the habits of primitive people from the southern and mid-western states. You can't force them to bathe or eat vegetables."' Secondary Sources The author thanks Professor Susan Shillinglaw and the Martha Heasley Cox Steinbeck Center, both at San Jose State University, for their help and tips on good "Tom Collins" sources. Literary journalist Sanora Babb's research writings on California migrants, 1938-1939, are available in On the Dirty Plate Trail,Remembering the DustBowl Refugee Camps,ed DouglasWixson (Austin: University ofTexas Press, 2007).They include field notes that she wrote while in California's migrant Ltbor camps as well as published articles and short stories about the migrant workers.The book also reproduces photographs of the people at the camps taken by Sanora's sister Dorothy Babb. Sanora Babb's California migrants novel, Whose NamesAre Unknown, eclipsed by The Grapesof Wrath in 1939,was finally published in 2004.

Three Tom Collins-related works by Jackson J. Benson are" 'ToTom Who Lived It:'John Steinbeck and the Man from Weedpatch,"Journal ofModern Literature(Spring 1976); Lookingfor Steinbeck's Ghost (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988); and The TrueAdventures ofJohn Steinbeck, Writer (NewYork'Viking Press, 1984; reprinted by Penguin Books, 1990). Other secondary works consulted were Thomas Dorrance, "Organization, Cooperation, and Administration in the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp,"Ex Post Facto, Journal of History Students at San Francisco State University (Fall 2006); Thomas Fensch, ed., Conversations with John Steinbeck (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988);James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Susan Shillinglaw, A Journem into Steinbeck's California (Berkeley, CA: Roaring Forties Press 2006); Charles J. Shindo, Dust Bowl Migrants in the American Imagination(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997); and Jerry Stanley, Children of the Dust Bowlthe True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp (NewYork: Crown, 1992) Walter J. Stein's California and the Dust Bowl Migration (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973) is the initial classic history in the field. Some of the federal records sources quoted by Stein, then in agency custody and stored at the Federal Records Center in San Francisco, were later destroyed due to bad federal records disposition applications. Others survived to become part of NARA-Pacific Region (San Francisco) holdings. The edition of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath used by the author was that published by Penguin Books in 2006, with introduction and notes by Robert DeMott. In addition, the author consulted Steinbeck's America andAmericans and Selected Nonfiction, ed. Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson (New York: Viking Press, 2002; orig. publ. 1966); The Harvest Gypsies,(Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1988; orig. publ. 1936); In Dubious Battle (New York: Covici-Friede Inc., 1936); Working Days: The Journalsof the Grapes ofWWrath, ed. Robert DeMott (NewYork:Viking Press, 1989); and Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, ed. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten (NewYork:Viking Press, 1975). Just after completion of this article, a new work about The Grapes of Wrath postpublication controversy appeared: Rick Wartzman, Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008).

Proho)lue 27

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TITLE: Archival Vintages for The Grapes of Wrath SOURCE: Prologue 40 no4 Wint 2008 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/