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Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941 (American Memory, Library of Congress)
This site presents "a multi-format ethnographic field collection" that examines migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. The Farm Security Administration (FSA) managed the camps; migrants from the rural areas of Oklahoma and nearby states inhabited them. Offers 363 audio recordings of songs, interviews, and camp announcements; 23 photographs; transcriptions of 113 songs; a scrapbook of newspaper clippings dealing with labor and migration issues; 11 camp newsletters; a Works Progress Administration folk song questionnaire; field notes and correspondence of Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin, the original collectors of these materials; two published magazine articles by Todd, giving the historical context of the collecting expedition; and other items concerning everyday migrant life and the collecting of folk materials. Topics range from camp court proceedings and personal narratives to square dances and baseball games. Also includes a 14-title bibliography; a 1,700-word background essay entitled "The Migrant Experience"; and a 1,400-word essay on the recording expedition. This is a valuable site for those interested in audio and written materials documenting the experiences of Depression-era migrants and their folk traditions.
California Labor History (San Francisco State University)
This interactive essay covers 300 years of labor history in California. Powered by Shockwave, the site features a map of California that depicts the locations of labor disputes from 1776 to 1992. Using the scrollbar at the top of the site, users can change the year displayed on the map. On the map itself, small dots indicate the location of a particular event important to California's labor history. Clicking on the dot reveals a chronological list of related "Labor Events." The bottom-left panel, titled "Bigger Picture," provides links to sections of a larger secondary source entitled "Contextual Information" on California labor history relevant to the year and location the user is viewing. 64 700-word essays are mainly excerpts from published books and articles.
Studs Terkel: Conversations with America (Chicago Historical Society)
Part of the digital repository, Historical Voices, this site was created in honor of Studs Terkel, the noted oral historian, radio host of "The Studs Terkel Program," and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Dedicated to making Terkel's 50 years of work available, it presents material pulled from approximately 5,000 hours of sound recordings. The seven galleries; The Studs Terkel Program; Division Street: America; Hard Times; The Good War; Race; Talking to Myself; and Greatest Hits center on the extensive interviews Terkel completed for the radio show and his books and contain more than 300 audio clips of interviews. Most of the interviews are about 15 minutes in length and explore diverse subjects, including Chicago architecture, urban landscape, immigrants, street life, the 1929 stock market crash, organized labor, New Deal programs, race relations, and integration. Interviewees include Chicago architect Frank Lloyd Wright and labor activist Cesar Chavez as well as men and women on a train to Washington D.C. for the 1963 Civil Rights March. Sound recordings are searchable by date, keyword, or author. Complementing this site is an educational section intended to help students and teachers use oral history in the classroom and a 55-minute interview with Terkel. This well-designed site offers a rich history of many influential, as well as lesser-known, personalities living in the second half of the 20th century and is beneficial to anyone interested in the Great Depression, World War II, race relations, and labor issues.
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project (LeRoy Chatfield)
The Farmworker Movement Documentation Project is an ongoing project founded in 2003 by LeRoy Chatfield. The project seeks to compile and publish primary source accounts from the volunteers who worked with Cesar Chavez to build his farmworker movement during the period, 1962-1993. The project provides a wealth of information on the Farm Worker movement and includes numerous essays written by United Farm Worker volunteers as well as video clips, music, oral histories, manuscripts, and photographs. The video and audio links range in length between 1 to 15 minutes and are of Cesar Chavez, footage of various strikes led by the Farm Worker movement, and other documentary information. This is a valuable site for its rich resource of primary source material on Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers movement.
The Cesar E. Chavez Foundation (Cesar Chavez Family and Friends)
The purpose of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization, seeks to "to maximize human potential to improve communities by preserving, promoting and applying the legacy and universal values" of Cesar E. Chavez. Chavez's family and friends established the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation in 1993 to educate people about the life and work of Cesar Chavez and to inspire individuals and communities to carry on his values and vision. The foundation's website includes media resources with a biography of Cesar Chavez, a photo gallery, audio clips and transcripts of various speeches made by Chavez. The website provides links for education resources designed for grade school through high school which include service-learning resources and model service-learning projects. There is information about upcoming events and news connected with the foundation as well.