California on the Breadlines

California on the Breadlines PDF Author: Jan Goggans
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520266218
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
"Jan Goggans has found a wonderful way to explore the rich history of 1930s California: by giving us a deep look at the indispensable work of economist Paul Taylor and photographer Dorothea Lange, the brilliant husband-wife team whose classic from '39, An American Exodus, deserves a spot on the shelf right next to The Grapes of Wrath. With prose that's as insightful as Taylor's own and as vivid as a Lange photograph, California on the Breadlines both captures and contextualizes this hugely important period. Goggans's book will surely find its own place in the canon of Californiana."--Rick Wartzman, author of Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath "During the Great Depression, Paul Taylor and Dorothea Lange took to the embattled fields of California on behalf of a suffering nation. This elegant narrative presents the national service and shared passion of two talented Americans swept up by the drama of their times and their growing discovery of each other."--Kevin Starr, University of Southern California "A rich and gorgeous book, and an elegant treatment of the complex and fascinating personal/professional relationship between husband and wife, labor economist Paul Taylor and photographer Dorothea Lange. Their photojournalism gave face and voice to the mute shuffling in 1930s California breadlines, etching into the national mind the greatest sufferers in a decade of agony. Professor Goggans' study is seminal in 21st century California studies: thoroughly researched, critically sophisticated and global in imagination, a pleasure to pore over and read through. California on the Breadlines is a true and riveting narrative of the rare, singular partnership between Lange and Taylor."--Jack Hicks, co-editor of The Literature of California, Volume I "This is an extraordinary book. Goggans elegantly interweaves sound scholarship with the moving human stories of California's Dust Bowl immigrants. In bringing the agony of Depression-era California home to the nation, we immediately think of John Steinbeck and Carey McWilliams. But Goggans makes it dramatically clear that Taylor and Lange, labor economist and photographer, husband and wife, fused documentary photojournalism and the traditions of protest literature to create a new form that was at least as essential in telling that story and in proposing remedies. As such, California on the Breadlines is a powerful reminder that even in terrible economic times, when Americans are willing, hope and imagination are always possible."--Peter Schrag, author of Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America "A major contribution, meticulously researched and written. Goggans refracts the complex histories of California labor and migration through the lens of Lange and Taylor's fieldwork, landmark images, and remarkable marriage. Rare in scholarship, this book narrates history's epic arc alongside the more intimate story of Lange and Taylor, providing a wealth of insights on the Great Depression that reads like the Great American novel."--John T. Caldwell, author of Production Culture and director of Rancho California (por favor) "California on the Breadlines offers a compelling analysis of how Lange's and Taylor's work grew out of their shared social concerns and how that work offers a unique portrait of the cultural imagination of their time--which of course, their work also helped to shape."--Terry Beers, author of Gunfight at Mussel Slough: Evolution of a Western Myth "Goggans provides an accessible and compelling account of the path that brought Paul Taylor and Dorothea Lange together and led them to dedicate their lives and work to documenting conditions of poverty in California."--Flannery Burke, author of From Greenwich Village to Taos: Primitivism and Place at Mabel Dodge Luhan's

California on the Breadlines

California on the Breadlines PDF Author: Jan Goggans
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520266218
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Jan Goggans has found a wonderful way to explore the rich history of 1930s California: by giving us a deep look at the indispensable work of economist Paul Taylor and photographer Dorothea Lange, the brilliant husband-wife team whose classic from '39, An American Exodus, deserves a spot on the shelf right next to The Grapes of Wrath. With prose that's as insightful as Taylor's own and as vivid as a Lange photograph, California on the Breadlines both captures and contextualizes this hugely important period. Goggans's book will surely find its own place in the canon of Californiana."--Rick Wartzman, author of Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath "During the Great Depression, Paul Taylor and Dorothea Lange took to the embattled fields of California on behalf of a suffering nation. This elegant narrative presents the national service and shared passion of two talented Americans swept up by the drama of their times and their growing discovery of each other."--Kevin Starr, University of Southern California "A rich and gorgeous book, and an elegant treatment of the complex and fascinating personal/professional relationship between husband and wife, labor economist Paul Taylor and photographer Dorothea Lange. Their photojournalism gave face and voice to the mute shuffling in 1930s California breadlines, etching into the national mind the greatest sufferers in a decade of agony. Professor Goggans' study is seminal in 21st century California studies: thoroughly researched, critically sophisticated and global in imagination, a pleasure to pore over and read through. California on the Breadlines is a true and riveting narrative of the rare, singular partnership between Lange and Taylor."--Jack Hicks, co-editor of The Literature of California, Volume I "This is an extraordinary book. Goggans elegantly interweaves sound scholarship with the moving human stories of California's Dust Bowl immigrants. In bringing the agony of Depression-era California home to the nation, we immediately think of John Steinbeck and Carey McWilliams. But Goggans makes it dramatically clear that Taylor and Lange, labor economist and photographer, husband and wife, fused documentary photojournalism and the traditions of protest literature to create a new form that was at least as essential in telling that story and in proposing remedies. As such, California on the Breadlines is a powerful reminder that even in terrible economic times, when Americans are willing, hope and imagination are always possible."--Peter Schrag, author of Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America "A major contribution, meticulously researched and written. Goggans refracts the complex histories of California labor and migration through the lens of Lange and Taylor's fieldwork, landmark images, and remarkable marriage. Rare in scholarship, this book narrates history's epic arc alongside the more intimate story of Lange and Taylor, providing a wealth of insights on the Great Depression that reads like the Great American novel."--John T. Caldwell, author of Production Culture and director of Rancho California (por favor) "California on the Breadlines offers a compelling analysis of how Lange's and Taylor's work grew out of their shared social concerns and how that work offers a unique portrait of the cultural imagination of their time--which of course, their work also helped to shape."--Terry Beers, author of Gunfight at Mussel Slough: Evolution of a Western Myth "Goggans provides an accessible and compelling account of the path that brought Paul Taylor and Dorothea Lange together and led them to dedicate their lives and work to documenting conditions of poverty in California."--Flannery Burke, author of From Greenwich Village to Taos: Primitivism and Place at Mabel Dodge Luhan's

California on the Breadlines

California on the Breadlines PDF Author: Jan Goggans
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520945891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
California on the Breadlines is the compelling account of how Dorothea Lange, the Great Depression’s most famous photographer, and Paul Taylor, her labor economist husband, forged a relationship that was private—they both divorced spouses to be together—collaborative, and richly productive. Lange and Taylor poured their considerable energies into the decade-long project of documenting the plight of California’s dispossessed, which in 1939 culminated in the publication of their landmark book, American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. Jan Goggans blends biography, literature, and history to retrace the paths that brought Lange and Taylor together. She shows how American Exodus set forth a new way of understanding those in crisis during the economic disaster in California and ultimately informed the way we think about the Great Depression itself.

Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat

Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat PDF Author: Janet Poppendieck
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520277546
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
At no time during the Great Depression was the contradiction between agriculture surplus and widespread hunger more wrenchingly graphic than in the government's attempt to raise pork prices through the mass slaughter of miliions of "unripe" little pigs. This contradiction was widely perceived as a "paradox." In fact, as Janet Poppendieck makes clear in this newly expanded and updated volume, it was a normal, predictable working of an economic system rendered extreme by the Depression. The notion of paradox, however, captured the imagination of the public and policy makers, and it was to this definition of the problem that surplus commodities distribution programs in the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations were addressed. This book explains in readable narrative how the New Deal food assistance effort, originally conceived as a relief measure for poor people, became a program designed to raise the incomes of commercial farmers. In a broader sense, the book explains how the New Deal years were formative for food assistance in subsequent administrations; it also examines the performance--or lack of performance--of subsequent in-kind relief programs. Beginning with a brief survey of the history of the American farmer before the depression and the impact of the Depression on farmers, the author describes the development of Hoover assistance programs and the events at the end of that administration that shaped the "historical moment" seized by the early New Deal. Poppendieck goes on to analyze the food assistance policies and programs of the Roosevelt years, the particular series of events that culminated in the decision to purchase surplus agriculture products and distribute them to the poor, the institutionalization of this approach, the resutls achieved, and the interest groups formed. The book also looks at the takeover of food assistance by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its gradual adaptation for use as a tool in the maintenance of farm income. Utliizing a wide variety of official and unofficial sources, the author reveals with unusual clarity the evolution from a policy directly responsive to the poor to a policy serving mainly democratic needs.

Women on the Breadlines

Women on the Breadlines PDF Author: Meridel Le Sueur
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780931122095
Category : Labor
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description


Free for All

Free for All PDF Author: Janet Poppendieck
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520944410
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
How did our children end up eating nachos, pizza, and Tater Tots for lunch? Taking us on an eye-opening journey into the nation's school kitchens, this superbly researched book is the first to provide a comprehensive assessment of school food in the United States. Janet Poppendieck explores the deep politics of food provision from multiple perspectives--history, policy, nutrition, environmental sustainability, taste, and more. How did we get into the absurd situation in which nutritionally regulated meals compete with fast food items and snack foods loaded with sugar, salt, and fat? What is the nutritional profile of the federal meals? How well are they reaching students who need them? Opening a window onto our culture as a whole, Poppendieck reveals the forces--the financial troubles of schools, the commercialization of childhood, the reliance on market models--that are determining how lunch is served. She concludes with a sweeping vision for change: fresh, healthy food for all children as a regular part of their school day.

Picturing Migrants

Picturing Migrants PDF Author: James R. Swensen
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806153164
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
As time passes, personal memories of the Great Depression die with those who lived through the desperate 1930s. In the absence of firsthand knowledge, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and the photographs produced for the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) now provide most of the images that come to mind when we think of the 1930s. That novel and those photographs, as this book shows, share a history. Fully exploring this complex connection for the first time, Picturing Migrants offers new insight into Steinbeck’s novel and the FSA’s photography—and into the circumstances that have made them enduring icons of the Depression. Looking at the work of Dorothea Lange, Horace Bristol, Arthur Rothstein, and Russell Lee, it is easy to imagine that these images came straight out of the pages of The Grapes of Wrath. This should be no surprise, James R. Swensen tells us, because Steinbeck explicitly turned to photographs of the period to create his visceral narrative of hope and loss among Okie migrants in search of a better life in California. When the novel became an instant best seller upon its release in April 1939, some dismissed its imagery as pure fantasy. Lee knew better and traveled to Oklahoma for proof. The documentary pictures he produced are nothing short of a photographic illustration of the hard lives and desperate reality that Steinbeck so vividly portrayed. In Picturing Migrants, Swensen sets these lesser-known images alongside the more familiar work of Lange and others, giving us a clearer understanding of the FSA’s work to publicize the plight of the migrant in the wake of the novel and John Ford’s award-winning film adaptation. A new perspective on an era whose hardships and lessons resonate to this day, Picturing Migrants lets us see as never before how a novel and a series of documentary photographs have kept the Great Depression unforgettably real for generation after generation.

Right Out of California

Right Out of California PDF Author: Kathryn S. Olmsted
Publisher: New Press, The
ISBN: 1620971399
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
“Olmsted finds in Depression-era California the crucible for strong-arm policies against farm workers that bolstered the conservative movement” (Kirkus Reviews). At a time when a resurgent immigrant labor movement is making urgent demands on twenty-first-century America—and when a new and virulent strain of right-wing anti-immigrant populism is roiling the political waters—Right Out of California is a fresh and profoundly relevant touchstone for anyone seeking to understand the roots of our current predicament. This major reassessment of modern conservatism reexamines the explosive labor disputes in the agricultural fields of Depression-era California, the cauldron that inspired a generation of artists and writers and that triggered the intervention of FDR’s New Deal. Noted historian Kathryn S. Olmsted tells how this brief moment of upheaval terrified business leaders into rethinking their relationship to American politics—a narrative that pits a ruthless generation of growers against a passionate cast of reformers, writers, and revolutionaries. “Olmstead’s vivid, accomplished narrative really belongs to the historiography of the left . . . As her strong research shows, race and gender prejudice informed, or deformed, almost the whole of American social and cultural life in the 1930s and was as common on the left as on the right.” —The New York Times Book Review “An accessible work that aids in contextualizing the rise of future conservative leaders such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.” —Publishers Weekly “A major reworking of the Republican right’s origins, this is also a compelling read for anyone interested in California’s outsize importance in America’s recent past.” —Darren Dochuk, author of From Bible Belt to Sunbelt

Group F.64

Group F.64 PDF Author: Mary Street Alinder
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1620405555
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Chronicles the lives and careers of the members of the West Coast photography movement, including such famous names as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Willard Van Dyke, and Edward Weston.

In the Struggle

In the Struggle PDF Author: Daniel J. O'Connell
Publisher: New Village Press
ISBN: 1613321244
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
A call to action in an ongoing battle against industrial agriculture From the early twentieth century and across generations to the present, In the Struggle brings together the stories of eight politically engaged scholars, documenting their opposition to industrial-scale agribusiness in California. As the narrative unfolds, their previously censored and suppressed research, together with personal accounts of intimidation and subterfuge, is introduced into the public arena for the first time. In the Struggle lays out historic, subterranean confrontations over water rights, labor organizing, and the corruption of democratic principles and public institutions. As California’s rural economy increasingly consolidates into the hands of land barons and corporations, the scholars’ work shifts from analyzing problems and formulating research methods to organizing resistance and building community power. Throughout their engagement, they face intense political blowback as powerful economic interests work to pollute and undermine scientific inquiry and the civic purposes of public universities. The findings and the pressure put upon the work of these scholars—Paul Taylor, Ernesto Galarza, and Isao Fujimoto among them—are a damning indictment of the greed and corruption that flourish under industrial-scale agriculture. After almost a century of empirical evidence and published research, a definitive finding becomes clear: land consolidation and economic monopoly are fundamentally detrimental to democracy and the well-being of rural societies.

The Routledge Companion to American Literary Journalism

The Routledge Companion to American Literary Journalism PDF Author: William Dow
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315525992
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 661

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Book Description
Taking a thematic approach, this new companion provides an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and international study of American literary journalism. From the work of Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman to that of Joan Didion and Dorothy Parker, literary journalism is a genre that both reveals and shapes American history and identity. This volume not only calls attention to literary journalism as a distinctive genre but also provides a critical foundation for future scholarship. It brings together cutting-edge research from literary journalism scholars, examining historical perspectives; themes, venues, and genres across time; theoretical approaches and disciplinary intersections; and new directions for scholarly inquiry. Provoking reconsideration and inquiry, while providing new historical interpretations, this companion recognizes, interacts with, and honors the tradition and legacies of American literary journalism scholarship. Engaging the work of disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, African American studies, gender studies, visual studies, media studies, and American studies, in addition to journalism and literary studies, this book is perfect for students and scholars of those disciplines.