JF Ptak Science Books
Duffy, Walter A. Migration of Drought Sufferers to the Pacific Northwest, under the auspices of the National Association for Travelers
Aid and Transient Service Conference, Seattle, Washington, June 27, 1938.
11x8.5”, 6 leaves, single-spaced. Provenance: the Library of Congress, with their tracking stamp on the front
(for 1946) and their surplus/duplicate stamp on the rear cover. WorldCat/OCLC locates only two copies.
Very Good condition. $250
As a chief administration in the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Duffy was in a superior position and with
access to appropriate information to write a solid and informed overview of the situation regarding migrant workers.
The document is only six leaves (and barely onto the sixth sheet) but it runs about 3k words in a concise narrative.
Mostly Duffy writes about acknowledging the plight of these people, addressing their immediate needs,
accommodating them, and making plans for their future as well as what was seen as a continuing flow of new
drought/economic victims. It is rather progressive thinking, and the sentiment of acceptance/aid is something that
can be imbued with pride. In 1938 the Depression had seen its depths and a recovery of sorts and then another
plunge, and there was no real over-the-horizon vision of what might be the case in 1940 or 1945 except that it
was reasonable to expect more of the same. The weather would change, of course, and the start of WWII in Europe
would change the course of the economic capacity of the U.S.; but in mid-1938, in the tenth year of the Depression,
there was no immediate reason to believe in anything that would bring about a fundamental change regarding the
migrant/displaced/transitional movement of citizens, and in this short piece Duffy was trying to figure things out. Duffy was the author of “Western migration of Farm Families”, in the Dorothea Lange collection, as seen in Anne
Spirn, Daring to Look, Dorothea Lange's Photographs and reporting from the Field, p 332. Duffy is reported here as the Regional Director, FSA, and also as “Regional Director, Region XI”.
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