Report of the Committee on Education and Labor…California Agricultural Background – California’s Migrant Problem

What to do with the thousands of Depression-era farmers looking for a better life in California.

“Labor required for California crops varies from about 48,000 in the month of March to about 145,000 in the month of September. For every one of these jobs there are several, sometimes estimated as many as six workers already in California.” – pg. 2132.

This official Congressional report, published by the Government Printing Office in 1940, outlines a portion of the extensive findings of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee Investigating Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor, chaired by Wisconsin progressive Robert La Follette, Jr. The La Follette Committee was organized in 1936 to investigate labor rights abuses across America, including strikebreaking, industrial espionage, private police forces, labor union disruption, etc.

Several years of work resulted in some startling conclusions, exemplified by this document detailing the woeful condition of seasonal agricultural workers in California, many of whom were driven to the Central Valley by the horrible conditions of the Dust Bowl. Dozens of pages of text contain testimony from various politicians, landowners, and migrant workers. Statistics present a wealth of information, notably pertaining to medical ailments, ethnicity/nationality, and education levels of the surveyed transient labor force. Two fold-outs are included – a map of authorized FSA Farm Labor Camps across Arizona and California, and a proposed plan for subdividing federal property into new towns to be settled by the migrants.

Further reading.