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The stock market crash in 1929 only served to exacerbate this already tenuous economic situation. Many independent farmers lost their farms when banks came to collect on their notes, while tenant farmers were turned out when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders. The attempts of these displaced agricultural workers to find other work were met with frustration due to a 30 percent unemployment rate.Soil conservation practices were not widely employed by farmers during this era, so when a seven-year drought began in 1931, followed by the coming of dust storms in 1932, many of the farms literally dried up and blew away creating what became known as the "Dust Bowl."

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Although the Dust Bowl included many Great Plains states, the migrants were generically known as "Okies," referring to the20 percent who were from Oklahoma.

The migrants represented in Voices from the Dust Bowl came primarily from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. Most were of Anglo-American descent with family and cultural roots in the poor rural South.

In the homes they left, few had been accustomed to living with modern conveniences such as electricity and indoor plumbing.

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''The Arvin Migratory Labor Camp was the first federally operated camp opened by the FSA in 1937.

The camps were intended to resolve poor sanitation and public health problems, as well as to mitigate the burden placed on state and local infrastructures.

The FSA camps also furnished the migrants with a safe space in which to retire from the discrimination that plagued them and in which to practice their culture and rekindle a sense of community.

Although each camp had a small staff of administrators, much of the responsibility for daily operations and governance devolved to the campers themselves. Civil activities were carried out through camp councils and camp courts.