Episode Summary:

California has always attracted outsiders, from the Gold Rush in the 1800s to young actors and filmmakers drawn to Hollywood. California was especially a place of migration during the Great Depression, when tens of thousands came searching for jobs and new beginnings. 

This is the first of two episodes about writers displaced by the Depression who took different paths to remaking themselves in California and documenting America. Future composer Harry Partch was more comfortable as a migrant than in straight mainstream society. Tillie Olsen found her way from Nebraska to become a reporter-activist who faced long odds to becoming a writer as a woman in the 1930s. 

With their work on the Federal Writers’ Project, Olsen and Partch helped create an expansive picture of California, people in migration, and the day-to-day reality that included deep labor unrest. Tensions that roiled across America boiled over in the California Writers’ Project, signaling the struggles to come in the national office. 

Speakers:

David Bradley, novelist

Mary Gordon, novelist

Andrew Granade, musicologist and biographer

David Kipen, journalist and author

Links and Resources:

California and the Dust Bowl - Oakland Museum of California

California Gold: Story Map of 1930s California Folk Music

"What Kind of Worker is a Writer" (about Tillie Olsen) by Maggie Doherty in The New Yorker

"I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen

"U.S. Highball," composed by Harry Partch, performed in 2018

Harry Partch: The Outsider

Reading List:

California in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the Golden State with introduction, by David Kipen

Harry Partch, Hobo Composer, by S. Andrew Granade

Tell Me a Riddle, by Tillie Olsen

The Chaneysville Incident: A Novel, by David Bradley

Payback: A Novel, by Mary Gordon

Credits:

Host: Chris Haley

Director: Andrea Kalin

Producers: Andrea Kalin, David A. Taylor, James Mirabello

Writer: David A. Taylor

Editor: Ethan Oser

Assistant Editor: Amy Young 

Story Editor: Michael May

Additional Voices: Karen Simon, Tim Lorenz, Steve Klingbiel, Sarah Supsiri, and Ethan Oser

Featuring music and archival from: 

Joseph Vitarelli

Bradford Ellis

Pond5

Library of Congress

National Archives and Records Administration

BBC

For additional content, visit peoplesrecorder.info or follow us on social media: @peoplesrecorder

Produced with support from:

National Endowment for the Humanities

California Humanities.

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