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
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.
","author_name":"Spark Media, Inc."}