I just finished reading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and I’m curious about the history of the Dust Bowl migration. First, how historically accurate is Steinbeck’s depiction? Did the Hoovervilles of the San Joaquin Valley really contain the degree of squalor, hunger, and misery that the Joads endured? My biggest question is how the situation resolved. Did the migrants unionize? Did World War II create the domestic economic conditions to raise them out of poverty and into the defense industry? Did agriculturalists in the Great Plains discover the environmentally catastrophic effects of their farming techniques and change practices, thus allowing people to return to the plains? And what were the economic conditions in the bigger cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco at the time? Thanks!