CALIFORNIA OR DUST takes place in 1939-1941 in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Fieldstone Camp, the setting of the book, is based on Arvin Federal Camp, one of several government camps opened by the Farm Security Administration to provide shelter to families who had fled the Dust Bowl in search of a better life in California. Arvin, also known as Weedpatch Camp, was located just south of Bakersfield, California.
The camp offered tents on sturdy wooden platforms or one-room tin cabins, hot showers, flush toilets, and laundry facilities for a dollar a week. If families didn’t have the money, they could work at the camp in exchange for a place to live.
Photographs by Dorothea Lange, American photographer and photojournalist. [No known restrictions. For information, see U.S. Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black & White Photographs.]