Articles as Our Link to the Past
Trisha Faye
Often I joke that I’d be happy if I could figure out how to get paid to sit and research all day. I truly enjoy writing historical fiction – both short stories and longer works. But the research, ah, that’s where my heart sings. Especially when all the planets align and I discover delicious tidbits with ease, instead of the roadblocks and rabbit holes that can so often be the results of our research time.
A few weeks ago, for example, I ran across something that had me doing a happy dance. Luckily, I don’t have a camera on my monitor, so there’s no visual proof of my antics that afternoon. (Be relieved!) Although I write stories in different eras, my passion is the 1930s. I tease that it’s John Steinbeck’s fault. Reading Grapes of Wrath in junior high, probably coupled with hearing stories about my grandparents early adult years (married in 1935), fueled my favoritism for this decade.
While researching for one of the short stories I was working on, I saw a reference to a series of articles that John Steinbeck wrote, “The Harvest Gypsies”. The articles were commissioned by The San Francisco News and were published from October 5-12, 1936. Steinbeck interviewed migrant workers and shared about the hardships encountered in these post-Depression years. I wanted to read those articles. Can you lust after a printed page? I was.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to foray into the World Wide Web too deeply before I found a copy of The Harvest Gypsies. I read that in 1938 the articles were published, along with Steinbeck’s epilogue “Starvation Under the Orange Trees”, in a pamphlet entitled Their Blood is Strong. Wikipedia reports that ten thousand copies of this pamphlet sold at twenty-five cents each. With a little more digging, I found a copy of the epilogue to accompany the treasure I’d printed out earlier.
Reading these, and other articles in a similar vein are fascinating to me. Interviews with people that lived in times prior and other written accounts are like a time capsule, taking us back to the days of long ago. These written accounts give us a direct peek into lives that we may otherwise not know. And even better, it’s all from the comfort of our own heated and air-conditioned homes, where we live with full refrigerators and stuffed bellies. Then, we close the page, go out to our luxurious automobile (compared to my Grandpa’s 1928 Chevy), and drive to the market a mile away to purchase anything we desire. I always feel so spoiled and grateful after reading some of these accounts of the life people that lived so many years ago.
For a little more reading fun, here are a few other sites I discovered in various research expeditions.
Life in a Michigan logging camp
Prohibition times and photos in Michigan
Diaries, Memoirs, Letters and Reports Along The Trails West
Happy reading!
Pages of the Past 