Squatter camp. Outskirts of Bakersfield, California. Note number of auto trailers and trailer being constructed on left
Summary
Public domain photograph of rural California, dust bowl refugees, 1930s-1940s, no copyright restrictions image - Picryl description
In the late 1910s, there were few gas stations, few paved roads, and no highways was a time that America’s leading historians call the beginning of modern RV. In 1920s people who traveled like this were referred to as 'tin can tourists'. As time progressed, trailers became attractive, comfortable and earned a new name "house trailer" in the 1930s and 1940s. In the late 1930s, during the Great Depression, FSA (Federal Farm Security Administration) built trailer camps to assist childless couples and families of one and two children in moving in areas where new factories were built, and labor was in demand. In 2005, FEMA provided temporary emergency housing using thousands of travel trailers.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history that happened during the Great Depression. Although overall three out of four farmers stayed on their land, the mass exodus depleted the population drastically in certain areas. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states; of those, 200,000 moved to California. Arriving in California, the migrants were faced with a life almost as difficult as the one they had left. Like the Joad family in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, some 40 percent of migrant farmers wound up in the San Joaquin Valley, picking grapes and cotton. They took up the work of Mexican migrant workers, 120,000 of whom were repatriated during the 1930s.
Cars of the 1920s.
Collection - The Beginning of RV
In 1910, there were few gas stations, few paved roads, and no highways but this is the year that America’s leading historians cite as the beginning of modern RV industry.Collection - The Dust Bowl Exodus
Draught and Great Depression RefugeesCollection - Cars: 1920s
People and Cars: 1920s
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