Ro's blog

WPA Guide to California PosterApparently, it is illegal to use your cell phone while driving in Los Angeles. I learned this the hard way when I journeyed to California this summer to see what the hype was about. I dedicated 2 months of my summer to California basically to understand why so many people loved it. I am from Northern Virginia, ten minutes outside of Washington D.C. I can’t even count the number of times I have been to California to visit, but this summer I was on a mission to see the “real” California (whatever that meant). For me, this meant doing the “touristy” things as well as trying to experience the local scene. Anyways, where I’m from, being on your cell phone while driving isn’t an illegal traffic regulation, so how was I supposed to know any better? This is where the “California: A Guide to the Golden State” WPA guide would have come in handy.

I had never seen a WPA guide before reading the one about California. I was shocked that there were so many details in the book because I am used to the more modern travel guides. Everything from flowers grown in different areas to traffic regulations was noted. It seemed as though I was reading more of a mini history book on California rather than a guide book. The guidebook was an amalgamation of a history lesson, tour guide, picture book, and law book.

Maybe because I have been brainwashed by modern day tourism, but the guidebooks were a little overwhelming for me. It seems as though good tour guides today have made the WPA guides more concise while still including important information. Of course, modern day tour guides are much shorter than the WPA guides, so every detail isn’t available. Even so, reading the WPA guide didn’t make me want to travel, I merely felt overwhelmed with information and lists of attractions. I feel that travel guides should be an overview to catch the tourist’s attention (once again, I could just be brainwashed by modern tourism). The histories and such should be left for the tourist to learn at the actual attraction. A guide to the state should be less dense, while guides to specific niche markets can hone in on the details. Of course, all these ideas probably weren’t the WPA’s main concerns, so, for the first try, “California: A Guide to the Golden State”, was extremely comprehensive.

In “The American Roadside”, Agee discusses the tourist cabin camp. I was compelled to write about this piece because of the comparison he makes of the cabin camps and hotels. He describes the hotels to have much fanfare attached to the experience, while cabin camps are simply homes for the night. He argues the check in process is much easier at a cabin camp, and most importantly motion isn’t as greatly affected. As people were itching for ‘motion’ the American roadside sprung up in response. The ‘real’ American tourism wasn’t about fancy hotels, but more tied to Americans on the road. He describes, “They have money to spend but not on the marble foyers of their forefathers. Their money is dedicated to motion..” (Agee 47).

Having a background in the Hospitality industry, I found this idea intriguing. Especially in the current hospitality industry, some hotels are so amazing that people joke they don’t even leave the hotel. Hotel developers are constantly trying to find ways to make more money, and the best way to make money is to have tourists stay on their property. The longer they’re at the actual property, the more money they will spend. So, hotels will create million dollar partnerships to lure people into a hotel and trap them inside. The types of tourists that do get suckered into hanging out at grandiose hotels instead of experiencing their surroundings often get put at the bottom of the “good tourist” food chain.

Today, staying at beautiful hotels, going on guided tours, and eating hotel food has a stigma behind it. To be a “good tourist” means to sleep for cheap, stow away laptops and cell phones, eat what the locals eat, explore spontaneously, and experience “culture”. So, I guess in some way the tourists in the tourist cabin camps back in the day led the way to this accepted more “meaningful” type of tourism. In this hierarchy of tourism, hostels are like our modern day cabin camps where the “real” tourists stay, but only long enough to sleep as to not miss out on the surroundings.

In “A Cool Million” West confronts many American ideals in a satirical way. Whether it is optimism, capitalism, or the American dream, he mocked them all mercilessly. I enjoyed the style of the book; it kept me interested and was very blunt. With that said, I don’t know whether the satirical nature of the book made the events worse or more bearable. At first, the casual tone of the horrific events that happen to Pitkin drew me into the novel. As I continued to read it, as the events continued to get worse, I felt almost uncomfortable chuckling at the expense of our poor main character. Nonetheless, for me, the satire overcame the empathy.

Obviously, no one should have to deal with the terrible events that happened to Pitkins. Even so, isn’t there something to say for his naivety and inability to wise-up (or am I just a terrible person)? He experienced abuse, being robbed, being cheated, dismantled body parts, yet he is persistent. So, at the conclusion of the novel I was impressed with his determination, but I couldn’t feel too empathetic. His naivety was a good satire of many naïve Americans. A lot of people I have come across have an optimism that can’t be quenched, mainly stemming from a lack of knowledge of the outside world. West’s novel did a good job mocking this optimism for ideals that don’t exist in many American lives today.

Recently, I was talking with my Russian friend about the American dream. We both have many family friends who immigrated to the states searching for the American dream. As I was thinking about this book and some people’s naïve belief in certain American ideals, I was reminded of our conversation. One thing my friend said stuck out to me; “the American dream died with our ancestors”. This sparked many questions in my head; What exactly is the American dream? Who is eligible to participate in this dream? Did the dream really die with our ancestors? Is this dream salvageable in today’s society? Is the American dream merely a myth? These questions are hard for me to answer because I realized it’s extremely hard for me to even define the American dream anymore. Yet, somehow I can recognize a satire of the American dream- hmm?

Christmas in Cali: A Chicago Tribune advertisement during the Great DepressionOne of the iconic pictures of the Great Depression is Dorthea Lange’s “Toward Los Angeles”. In class we discussed the irony behind the photograph between the migrant hitchhikers and the billboard advertisement. There are several pictures, similar to the Dorthea Lange photograph, that depict people down and out standing near an advertisement for a more luxurious lifestyle. These photographs caught my attention as we discussed them in class because of the contrast they showed between the homeless and those lucky enough to afford luxuries. I wanted to do more research on the advertising of the time, and how it reflected the gap between the really rich and the really poor.

I came across the Chicago Tribune Ads during the Great Depression era. There were 30 images on the page that I looked at of past ads. The ads reflected the Depression in the discounted rates and “depression deals”, but they still advertised luxury goods. There were ads for lingerie, jewelry, expensive cigars, bicycles, and cameras- all items that would be considered extras for many people during the Depression. One of the ads I found interesting was the $100 silver fox scarf. As thousands of people were scrounging for food, others were buying $100 dollar fox scarves. Thinking about the down-and-outers we talked about in class, and contrasting them to the people who could afford luxuries, such as a fox scarf, really confirmed the gap in wealth during the Depression. Some people benefited from the Depression with the deflated prices on certain goods while others were hungry on the streets.

Another one of the ads boasted a “Christmas in Cali” package that was $106.45 for a round trip fare to and from California. I found this extremely ironic as the homeless people we study mainly headed towards California to find work. This ad was an ad to send people to California not to work, but to spend their Christmas on a Cali vacation. So, as many homeless people traveled to California in search of some sort of Promised Land, others vacation to California as a getaway from their already comfortable lives. In keeping with the “travel habit”, the migrants heading toward CA for work weren’t the only ones who traveled during this period. Apparently, others were able to travel for weekend trips to avoid the cold during Christmas and spend it in the warm heat of California. People traveled west, but different groups had extremely different reasons.

Young children waiting for soup in Dubuque, Iowa

Kromer’s Waiting for Nothing is filled with vignettes of hardship and truly depressing moments. I was especially drawn to chapter six because he begins the chapter describing hungry children. We have read other pieces with children as part of the storyline, but I always grouped them with their families. This particular vignette got me thinking about how hard it would have been for a child growing up during this time. For children whose families were scraping for food to survive, the obvious luxuries and toys weren’t available for the kids. It seemed as though the children of this time had to grow up quickly because they were immediately thrown into roles they wouldn’t have otherwise.

I did a bit of research and found that “250,000 young people were homeless in the early years of the Depression” and “In some coal mining regions, the percentage of malnourished children reached as high as 90%”. Many schools were shut down, and children were therefore not getting educations. While reading Kromer describe the children waiting to go into the mission, the thought of a child’s other hardships beyond hunger didn’t cross my mind. When reading more about the children of the Depression, it made me recognize not only were they hungry, but many of them had little to do, no education, no toys or luxuries, and were often sent away by their parents.

As I continued to read up on the plight of a child during the Depression, I came across letters that children wrote to Mrs. Roosevelt. F.M. writes from Kansas, “I am 13 years old and will be 14 the 27 of this month. I am a victim of a shut in. I have been sick ever since the 12 of July. And have a very lonely place to stay. My parence's are very poor people. I cant even go to school yet with the other kids. And doubt if I can this year. I have nothing I can do but set around and I get so lonely I don't know what to do. And if you want to cheer me up and make me one of the happies boys in the world just send me some money to get a cheap raido. […] I am in the dust bowl. We didn't raise any crop this year. And we have to live off of the releif and theres no injoyment out of that. But were thankful for it. My mother is sick and under the doctor's care most of the time and my Grandma that lives with me is very poorly. And that keeps my heart broken all the time. And nothing to amuse myself with”.

Maybe because of their youth, but something about the plight of a poor child during the depression really drew me in to research. Kromer obviously had many intense stories, but an emotional part for me was when he described the child having to trick the stiffs in the mission into giving him two buckets of soup. When you’re at such a young age, the world seems so hard and even small things are imagined to be the end of the world. I can only imagine how strong the children of the Depression had to have been to be able to endure these hardships at such a young stage in their lives. Kromer’s vignette in chapter six was almost like a small tribute to the clever street smarts of young children, in this particular case one who was forced to trick the stiffs in order to survive.

Reading through Boxcar Bertha was a strenuous task for me. A fictional piece of writing masked as an autobiography about the romanticized life of a homeless women wasn’t extremely appealing. I also don’t see the appeal in making homeless life seem like a blessing. Bertha speaks of her childhood filled with pimps, poverty, prostitutes, adultery, and jail as normality. She describes that because it was all she knew, it was normal for her to witness it. Even so, and correct me if I’m wrong, seeing people sent to jail and scraping for any type of food is a scary time for a child. I found Bertha’s mostly happy life hard to believe. Yes, homeless people might have hope, but in the end their day to day struggles are more monotonous and hard to deal with than the “fun” homeless life Bertha depicts.

I found this piece even more difficult to comprehend when I got to the Afterword. It states, “This takes nothing away from the book as far as we’re concerned; it just makes it more worthwhile to know something more about the true author, who was a highly unusual and fascinating fellow”. Contrary to this statement, reading the afterword increased my distaste for the novel. Not only did I read a romanticized story of a female homeless person, but in the end I realize that it is written by a man. Although he had been homeless at different points of his life, he was never a female. I can imagine multitudes of difficulty in genuinely writing about the life of a female hobo if you are a male. Granted, he fictionalized some real life encounters and stories he had been told. Maybe the gap between reality and Reitman’s idea of reality is why being a female homeless person seems so exciting in this novel?

The second part of the quote above speaks of how Reitman was an unusual and fascinating man. If so, I wonder why he didn’t write an autobiography of himself? This also makes me question why he chose to write a novel about a female hobo instead of a male because he did choose to incorporate certain people and events in his life. Overall, I am confused as to what the point of this novel was. I personally am curious as to what he wanted the response to be from this novel. The end of the afterword suggests he wanted some sort of delusional enlightened hope for humanity. Maybe it’s in the way the story is presented, but my response was nowhere near a feeling of hope.

Richard's Barber Shop: Image from "Store Front- The Disappearing Face of New York"

When hitting the streets on my own personal photography projects I have always struggled asking people if I could take pictures of them. Much like Agee, I always struggle with the issue of trying to remain true to my photography versus exploiting the subject. I feel that through this conflict and through Agee and Evan’s genuine concern for their subject, they were able to take respectable photographs. On the other hand, Caldwell and Bourke-White took misleading photographs and accompanied them with manufactured quotes and captions. I think in many situations a photograph can speak for itself. Unless the photographer is trying to give the viewer a message a simple photograph should be able to evoke some sort of response from the viewer. Sometimes, as a supplement, a quote or caption can help the viewer understand what the photographer was trying to do with the picture. Either way, I found the fabrication of quotes in “You Have Seen Their Faces”, to be extremely condescending towards the subjects.

Even if photographs are embellished and carefully propped out, they somehow become the images that we remember. Many iconic photographs in our history have been carefully thought out and planned, yet they still remind us of that event or time it depicts. Because of this, documentary photographers should try to remain as true as possible when photographing their subjects. A strength I find in documentary photography is the essence of what it’s supposed to do. It is supposed to document people, time, place, or whatever its subject may be. Reading the articles reminded me of a more recent series of documentary photographs by James and Karla Murray. They have a series of photographs documenting New York City’s timeworn storefronts that have slowly been disappearing.

In their book, “Store Front- The Disappearing Face of New York”, they use photography as a way to document storefronts throughout the city. They interview the owners and customers of these storefronts and publish they interviews along with pictures of the storefronts. If anything, what this type of photography does is archive an important part of our history. The city storefronts are a huge part of New York, and through these photographs even if the stores are closing there will be a legacy. Of course, this is a bit different than the documentary photographs of the people during the Great Depression. But overall, I think that there is virtue in an honest photograph that can capture a passing moment in history.

1930 Ad Campaign“Persons who take a long journey involving much hardship with a view to gain are called ‘Argonauts’”. As I read the first two chapters, there was no sign of this “hardship” that introduced the book. I thought it was ironic almost to the point of satire that the book was introduced with the above description of Argonauts, yet the definition seemed far from the actual experience. Granted, I did only read the first two chapters. Even so, the hardship in the first two chapters was extremely minimal if not nonexistent. These kids were students who decided to embark on a journey to discover their place in America. They had the luxury of being able to go to school, and deciding to leave school to get what they described as a “real” education.

Knowing that they didn’t have much money to start with, their first “hardship” came when they realized they had to roll their own cigarettes instead of buying them. They wanted to understand how the unemployed lived, but I don’t know if they realized how far detached they were from that reality. They were fortunate enough to have luxury items at their disposal such as portable typewrites, a gas stove, and cameras. More “hardship” arose as Helen and Joe got into a quarrel over cereal. While the homeless and unemployed were lucky to get any food, Joe complained about Helen’s choice of peanut butter rather than cereal.

Overall, the beginning of this book didn’t impress me as the students seemed a bit naïve to the colossal goal they began with. They state that they want to discover their place in America. Perhaps the virtue in this trip lies in the realization of the gap in the authenticity of their observations versus the actual lives of the people they observe. Maybe later on in the book they will actually endure real hardship, because as it stands at the end of chapter two there wasn’t any true misfortune.

Rose of Sharon breastfeeding a starving man

Steinbeck uses the road as a tool to develop his characters. There is a clear flight, as shown in the Joad family, to a better life in the West. The experiences along the road are arguably more significant than the actual goal of arriving in the West. Through the road trip, Steinbeck illustrates an unspoken system of kindness, empathy, and misunderstanding. In the end when the dreams of the West don’t turn out as promising as they seemed, he tries to leave the reader with hope as one man is saved by the death of a child. Overall, one of the strengths of the novel lies in the depiction of the human condition; whether fictional or not. Ashley states in The Grapes of Wrath: Overview, “Steinbeck at his best, as in The Grapes of Wrath, writes of basic plights of mankind”. Whatever his intentions were, Steinbeck expressed trickles of hope in the good of mankind throughout his novel.

“The movement changed them; the highways, the camps along the road, the fear of hunger and the hunger itself, changed them” (Steinbeck 282). It seems as though people, whether characters or not, embark on road trips with a goal in mind. The goal can be realized, changed, or forgotten along the way, but there is some sort of change that happens. For the Joads, their goal was to go West in search of a better life. Although the ending is ambiguous as to their future, the movement, as Steinbeck writes, did change them. When we are put in situations that are unfamiliar we are forced to adapt to survive. Sometimes these survival instincts will be animalistic in nature and other times compassion will overcome them. As I read the novel, I envisioned Steinbeck had some sort of belief in the good in man. Although a good portion of the novel was about the machines holding the man down, I also saw a more hidden optimistic side. Through the compassion and willingness of the Joad family and other characters in The Grapes of Wrath, there is a clear undertone of unity and perseverance of mankind.

On another note:

Report: Growing Ranks Of Nouveau Poor Facing Discrimination From Old Poor

First verse of Seven-Cent Cotton and Forty-Cent MeatI found the moving campsite culture described in chapter 17 extremely intriguing because of the camaraderie amongst strangers. It seemed as though because people were in such dire circumstances, they were forming bonds with other drifters. Everyone in the camps, including the children, had a sense of responsibility for the community. Steinbeck drew an image of the unofficial laws, consequences, and lifestyles of the moving campsites that depicted a community seemingly better than most (minus the economic factor). Everyone shared, cared, and did their part- most likely much more than they would otherwise. The chapter closed with a man playing guitar for the campsite allowing the travelers to unite and rest their worries.

Music has a way of uniting even the most unlikely people. The travelers all listen to the man playing guitar and it is as if their worries are one, and these troubles are somehow forgotten for the moment as the music takes its place. As Steve Pond, a professor at Cornell states, “there’s a sense that the musician has a special way about him, a way of crystallizing in words and music those shared worries, hardships, and hopes of everyone in the camp. There’s something redemptive in singing about hard times. If you can still sing about them, they haven’t conquered you yet. And the dual facts that everyone knows the words and that they join in a collective meditation on those shared hard times have a way of joining the camp together (however briefly), of catalyzing a bond among people who share life’s struggle.” As I researched the music the guitar picker in The Grapes of Wrath played, I came across a series of posts by Steve Pond regarding the music of The Grapes of Wrath.

In Pond’s research, he found the song sung by the campers, “Ten-Cent Cotton and Forty-Cent Meat”, by a similar title. “Seven-Cent Cotton and Forty-Cent Meat” attributed to Bob Miller in 1930, portrays the unfortunate plight of the Great Depression. The song ends with these lyrics:

“Seven cent cotton and forty cent meat How in the world can a poor man eat Poor getting poorer all around here Kids coming regular every year Fatter our hogs, take 'em to town All we get is six cents a pound Very next day we have to buy it back Forty cents a pound in a paper sack”

Another famous song of the Great Depression was “Brother Can You Spare A Dime”:

“They used to tell me I was building a dream And so I followed the mob When there was earth to plow or guns to bear I was always their right on the job They used to tell me I was building a dream With peace and glory ahead Why should I be standing in line Just waiting for bread?”

Music was an escape for many of the people suffering from the Great Depression. As Pond described, music had a redemptive quality allowing the singer to conquer their worries momentarily. Even the actual act of singing gave the travelers something else to focus their attention on in times where their conditions consumed them. Music was not only a way to forget, but also a way to reminisce, look forward to better times, and build camaraderie.

A cover of "Seven-Cent Cotton and Forty-Cent Meat"

"Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?" with images of The Great Depression