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Chapter 20

Hooverville, and Casy is taken

Summary

Granma goes to a pauper's burial in Bakersfield and the family camps in a Hooverville. Floyd Knowles explains the economics: handbills bring six thousand men for three thousand jobs, leaders are jailed and talkers blacklisted, and the safe posture with police is to be "bull-simple". Ma cooks a stew watched by starving children and cannot keep it from them. A labour contractor arrives with a deputy; when Floyd demands a licence and a written wage the deputy invents a charge, Floyd runs, the deputy's shot blows a woman's hand apart, and Casy kicks him unconscious. Because Tom tripped the deputy and would be sent back to McAlester, Casy sends him into the willows and gives himself up alone. Uncle John gets drunk; Connie has walked out on Rose of Sharon. Warned the camp will be burned, the family leaves, is turned back by a vigilante roadblock, and drives south anyway toward the government camp.

Plates

Illustration style

The basket outside the coroner's office
00 The basket outside the coroner's office
Arriving at Hooverville
01 Arriving at Hooverville
Floyd Knowles grinding valves
02 Floyd Knowles grinding valves
The kettle set down
03 The kettle set down
Rose of Sharon and Connie under the tarpaulin
04 Rose of Sharon and Connie under the tarpaulin
The contractor and the deputy
05 The contractor and the deputy
The shot
06 The shot
Casy taken away
07 Casy taken away
Tom carries Uncle John up the bank
08 Tom carries Uncle John up the bank
Watching the camp burn, then south
09 Watching the camp burn, then south
The basket outside the coroner's office
00 The basket outside the coroner's office
Arriving at Hooverville
01 Arriving at Hooverville
Floyd Knowles grinding valves
02 Floyd Knowles grinding valves
The kettle set down
03 The kettle set down
Rose of Sharon and Connie under the tarpaulin
04 Rose of Sharon and Connie under the tarpaulin
The contractor and the deputy
05 The contractor and the deputy
The shot
06 The shot
Casy taken away
07 Casy taken away
Tom carries Uncle John up the bank
08 Tom carries Uncle John up the bank
Watching the camp burn, then south
09 Watching the camp burn, then south

Composition

Written: 19 August 1938 to 3 September 1938 Journal entries: #55, #62, #63 Dating: from DeMott's editorial markers in Working Days

From the journal

19 August 1938, Friday, 10:20 — Entry #55

[…] have been too fortunate lately. Of course it balances with the long years on the other side. Can’t tell. Can’t tell. Just have to plod for 90,000 words. Plod as the people are plodding. They aren’t rushing. And now to work and the first life in Hooverville [Ed.—Chapter 20].

2 September 1938, Friday, 10:20 — Entry #62

[…] I think this last chapter has been weak in detail. Must get it back. Got to get them out of Hooverville and into a federal camp for they must learn something of democratic procedure. But today it is just a matter of getting them out of camp [Ed.—end of Chapter 20]. Casy is in jail. Uncle John is drunk. Tom […]

3 September 1938, Saturday, 11:00 — Entry #63

Today is Saturday and half a day’s work will finish the chapter. * So I’ll do it. The end of the Hooverville chapter. Carol is typing now and the book is beginning to seem real to me. Also Carol got the title last night “The Grapes of Wrath.” I think that is a wonderful title. Must query Elizabeth, but will […]

Source: Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938–1941, ed. Robert DeMott (Viking, 1989).