Handbill, 1941
Seems too nice, kinda. I seen the han'bills fellas pass out, an' how much work they is, an' high wages an' all; an' I seen in the paper how they want folks to come an' pick grapes an' oranges an' peaches. That'd be nice work, Tom, pickin' peaches. Even if they wouldn't let you eat none, you could maybe snitch a little ratty one sometimes. An' it'd be nice under the trees, workin' in the shade. I'm scared of stuff so nice. I ain't got faith. I'm scared somepin ain't so nice about it." - Ma Joad (60, e-text)
This flyer is a scrapbook artifact of Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin's 1940 and 1941 ethnographic expeditions to FSA migrant labor camps in California.
Todd and Sonkin set out on their trip with different motivations (Todd in search of folk songs and ballads, Sonkin hoping to discover more about American linguistics), but both were purportedly greatly inspired to explore FSA camps after reading another of Steinbeck's works: the 1938 pamphlet Their Blood is Strong.
The pamphlet, written two years after Steinbeck's first excursion into realist, labor-focused writing (In Dubious Battle, 1936) included all of the Harvest Gypsies articles Steinbeck produced for San Francisco News. Armed with official FSA documents, knowledge from his own experiences visiting labor camps, and a collection of interviews and folklore from actual workers - Steinbeck's documentation of deplorable farming conditions, health problems, and laborer dignity serves as a cryptic anthropological prologue to the seminal novel he would later go on to produce. Todd and Sonkin's findings proved to have a legacy of their own, but it's very cool to see how Steinbeck truly paved the way for farm camp investigations.
*It's also super fascinating that the cover of Their Blood is Strong focuses on Breast Feeding - a powerful image that found its way to the final the pages of The Grapes of Wrath.
The scrapbook artifact remains one of the few concrete examples of the "handbills" depicted within The Grapes of Wrath. The text of the flyer promises the same abundance of job opportunities that tempt the fictional Joad family to depart for California. While it's unclear whether the lofty "seems too nice" guarantees of this particular bill ("5000 familes", "240,000 Acres", "Big Crop" "Heavy Picking" "Cabins or Tents Free - Good Camps", "Several Months Work", "Warm Dry Winters") proved to be true (they very likely were not), it's clear that these flyers attempted to be greatly enticing to laborers financially and emotionally depleted by the dilapidation of the prairies. What's particularly intriguing to note in Ma Joad's passage (quoted at the top of the page), is how her incredulous attitude is undermined by hopeful fantasies. Although Ma repeatedly asserts how hesitant she is to believe in an opportunity with no reported downside (she's "scared", has no "faith", etc.), the matriarch of the Joad family can't help but to daydream a little. Despite forming characters that seem familiar with the sentiment behind the adage: "There's no such thing as a free lunch", Steinbeck portrays these bills (and their associated implications) as somthing capable of stifling prudent trepidation.