Shaking off the Dust Bowl : Strikes and the challenge of iconic history

Often, public understanding of the American Great Depression is reduced to the joint synecdoches of the Dust Bowl and The Grapes of Wrath. The combined visual and textual narrative of the vulnerability of America’s internal migrants, while poignant and powerfully accessible, also excludes a more varied set of experiences. This chapter examines museum engagement with iconic history, a strategy that both assists and limits exhibition-based interpretation. Through the stories of autoworkers in Flint, Michigan and Dust Bowl migrants-turned-fruit pickers in central California, Depression-era industrial action is explored. In both cases, the museums have sought to bring together local experience with national iconic narratives. In one institution the combination is effective; in the other the interpretation is strongly influenced by local politics. This chapter demonstrates how historical iconography and specificity of place each work to shape the public narratives of vulnerability in ways that are not always transparent.

© Meighen Katz, 2020. All rights reserved.