Historic Hood River
Latest Treasure
Notes
Yet another wonderful piece of history walked into the museum a few weeks ago. A resident found some bound annual reports from the “Oregon State College Extension Service” and passed them along. While there is plenty of dry material about crop treatments and 4-H activities, the reports contain an invaluable insight into life in Hood River during the war years of 1941-1943. There are plenty of images like this one (captioned “Allen Miller and His Guernsey Heifer Winner of Sr. Dairy Showmanship- 4-H Fair- 1942”, but there are also images and text about the final years of the Great Depression, the Japanese “Evacuation”, the importation of Mexican farmworkers, and civil defense efforts during the war.
These reports are all prepared and signed by A.L. Marble, County Agent. They are carefully typed on onion skin paper, with small black and white photographs glued in to illustrate the text. We’ll spend the week looking at some of these images and discussing what they tell us.
Tags: 4H, Agency, agriculture, county fair, cow, Extension, Miller, OSU, World War II
L. E.
I just learned about the “Bracero Program†a few years ago. Like so many other events that occurred because of WWII, it changed a way of life in the U.S.
You don’t see many Guernseys any more.
Arlen L Sheldrake
Roger and I will be most interested in these postings as father John L. was a Deputy Sheriff during those years and was a reluctant participant in the removals.
I join L.E. in just learning about the Bracero Program…….well used by the railroads as their regular workers either left for the war factories or to war.
nels
Any guesses where this site is?
nels
I wish the govt would go back to their process in supplying braceros for crops.
They went down to Mexico, accepted applications, and did some health
clearance. (One film showed them checking their hands to see if they had
'workers hands'.)
Then they bussed them to the farms, delivered the number of requested
workers. and moved them up the states as crops matured.
They then transported them back to Mexico when work requests were done.
Much more sane and most probably safer for the workers who are often
exploited by 'coyotes'.
ArthurB
nels, these reports tell a little bit of a different tale about the importation of workers from Mexico. We'll talk about it later this week, and I hope to encourage someone to do a more rigorous review of this great contemporaneous documentation. I've just done a quick scan but we can make the documents or copies available for academic study.
Erica
Thank you, Arthur! I look forward to seeing and learning more from this era.
cg
A few years ago there was a program at the CG Art Center featuring a panel of speakers about farm labor programs. I remember someone familiar with hiring laborers in British Columbia describing a much more rational program for hiring workers from Mexico. Googling it I think it is called the Seasonal Agric. Worker Program with this description: Migrants to Canada enjoy superior labor market outcomes compared with those to the United States, with higher wages and more compact work schedules that yield higher earnings and shorter periods away from families compared with undocumented migrants to the United States. Labor migration to Canada also tends to operate as a circular flow with considerable repeat migration whereas undocumented migrants to the United States do not come and go so regularly, as crossing the Mexico-U.S. border has become increasingly difficult and costly.