Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Food on table, FSA camp -- High Plains -- Sanora Babb with Dust Bowl refugees -- "Dirty Plate Trail" -- "Okies" -- Mexican migrant workers in camp -- Mexican migrant worker with guitar in camp -- Slim Quinteros, labor organizer -- CIO camp, Mexican migrant worker with child -- CIO camp, Mexican migrant workers -- Dust Bowl refugee children -- Dusted out farmers -- Home on wheels -- Weed Patch Store -- Strike committee -- Strike picket line -- Picket sign -- Memorial service, Pixley strike victims -- Peaches, Calpak orchard, Visalia -- Loshope family -- Dust Bowl girl -- Games, FSA camp -- Halloween in an FSA camp -- Refugee farmer and guitar, FSA camp -- Refugee workers repair their cars -- Tom Collins -- FSA mobile office -- Tom Collins making calls -- FSA camp, Shafter -- Wash day in an FSA camp -- Refugee worker laying wood floor of tent home -- Laundry, FSA camp, Shafter -- Sanora Babb (1938) -- Dorothy Babb (ca. 1940) -- Refugees' temporary home alongside road -- King family, refugee workers and musicians -- Harlan and Julie King -- Charlie and Bill King -- Charlie singing, Bill King with bass fiddle -- Beckenwirth family -- Migrant Mother, FSA -- FSA camp, mother and child -- Beulah King -- Dust storm over highway near Dalhart, Texas -- Farm buildings half buried in sand -- "Bindlestiff"- itinerant worker -- Southern Pacific Railroad billboard -- Tom Collins and Sanora Babb -- Strike committee with organizer -- Strike committee, organizers -- Picket car -- Picket captain, Shafter strike -- Picket line, Shafter -- Picket line, Shafter -- Girl washing clothes in FSA camp washhouse -- FSA clinic, Shafter -- FSA clinic, Shafter -- Billboard, corporate farm near Merced, California -- Miller & Lux, corporate farmer -- Sheep farm, Miller & Lux -- Sunkist packing plant, Murphy Ranch (page 70).

Grain elevator, Von Glahn Corporation (page 70) -- Sunkist Packing Company sheds (page 70) -- Company-owned shacks for migrant workers (page 70) -- Home of a corporate farmer (page 70) -- Calpak peaches en route to Del Monte Packing (page 70) -- Tagus Ranch, Visalia (page 70) -- Tagus Ranch (page 70) -- Billboard-to discourage workers from striking -- "The rains came" -- Spring flood in camp -- Children playing in flooded area, Shafter camp -- Wind damage in tent camp -- After the storm -- Starving refugee child -- Whittier, California -- Figs, Fresno, California -- Cotton wagon, Bakersfield, California -- "Our daily bread" -- Meeting in tent -- Sanora Babb with CIO organizer and child -- CIO hall, Corcoran, "UCPWA, Local" -- CIO camp -- CIO camp with ditch to protect from floods -- Entry to CIO camp -- CIO camp guard -- Milk delivery, CIO camp -- CIO labor organizer -- Gene Gregg, CIO camp -- "Democracy Functioning" -- Corcoran, California (1938) -- California State Employment Service office -- Milk for children, Corcoran camp -- Mrs. Evans, social worker -- Outdoor kitchen in refugee camp -- Camp stove -- Cooking fudge in tent -- Oranges ready for harvesting -- Collection, Corcoran camp -- Waiting for milk -- Sick child -- Clinic in Hanford, California -- Refugee farmers at play, Arvin FSA camp -- "They would rise and fall and, in their falling, rise again." -- Migrant Farmer (Dorothy Babb) -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Babb Sisters -- Chapter 1. The Dirty Plate Trail -- Chapter 2. Field Notes -- Oklahoma Panhandle, 1934 -- "Triple A, Dusted Out" -- Note on the government's AAA program to reduce hog production and corn acreage -- The Dispossessed -- Labor Conditions -- Farmer-Industrialist -- Labor Protest -- Organization of labor -- Government Camps.

Fascist characteristics of the campaign against the migratory workers in California -- Visalia 2/24/38 -- Labor contractor -- Kinds of camps in California -- Birthrate -- In answer to the frequent threat -- In the fields, 1938 -- Large Landowners -- Rag Town -- Refugee Needs -- A day in the camps -- San Joaquin Valley, California, 1938 -- Thirty-seven varieties of religion -- Striking Workers, Angry Growers -- March 1938 -- October 29, 1938 -- Two stories of labor spies -- Notes for a Novel -- Chapter 3. Reportage -- Migratory Farm Workers in California (1938) -- There Ain't No Food (1938) -- Farmers without Farms (New Masses, 21 June 1938) -- We Sure Struck It Tuff: The Storm -- Dealing in Major Catastrophes (New Masses, 23 May 1939) -- Letter to Dorothy Babb (May 1938) -- Chapter 4. Dust Bowl Tales -- The Dark Earth (The Magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1934) -- Morning in Imperial Valley (Kansas Magazine, 1941) -- Whose Names Are Unknown -- Chapter 5. The Dust Bowl as Site of Memory -- Chapter 6. Epilogue: Letters from the Fields -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.