Songs in the Work Camp
In Chapter 20 of The Grape of Wrath, Steinbeck mentions the hardship that the other migrant workers face when the Joads arrive the Hooverville camp. For instance, the Joads find out the camp is full of hungry families who move here and are unable to find work, and the narrator also describes the landowners’ hostility toward the Okies. Besides that, Steinbeck writes about the struggle for Ma to support the family in the cotton field after they leave the government camp. In real-life, one article from Folklife Center News also tells a similar story about the migrant workers in California. The reporter for Folklife Center News reports that:
Migrants who did cross over found that the available labor pool was vastly disproportionate to the number of job openings that could be filled. And those who found employment soon learned that this surfeit of workers caused a reduction in the going wage rate. Even with an entire family working, migrants could not support themselves on these low wages. (Fanslow, 5)
Likewise, the songs that the Okies wrote at that time also reflect the similar aspects of the camp. The two examples are: “Loveless CCC” and “Stevensville Blues.”
“Loveless CCC” is a song composed in the Brokenair C.C.C camp in Oklahoma. The song is about a worker who regretted joining the CCC camp because of the hard labor and the harsh treatment he received in the camp. Similarly, in Steinbeck’s The Grape of Wrath, the Joads also get to do the hard labor in the cotton field and at the same time, the staffs in the camp do not treat them fairly.
The music transcript “Stevensville Blues” is a song written by Bill Jackson in the Arvin camp in 1941. The lyric describes a young man called Bill Stryker travels on the road and landed in Stevensville. Throughout the entire song, it mentions the suffering that Bill encountered in Stevensville and how he has become “a different kid / When I left Stevensville.” The theme of the songs reflects the Joads’ transformation on the road, such as Tom, when they encounter the hardship in California.