“Dust Bowl” migrants (or “Okies”) from the American Southwest left their drought-stricken farms and attempted to settle in the fertile California agricultural valleys. Tens of thousands discovered that the land was already all owned, the available work was poorly paid, and local authorities were unable or unwilling to offer assistance to desperate families.

As the Depression grew worse in the early 1930s, Americans wondered why their government was failing to act to help them and why factories with perfectly good machinery sat silent and shuttered when workers needed jobs.