Global InformationLast Man Club information
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The Last Man Club was a mutual support group for farmers that chose to stay in the Southern Plains of Texas, US in spite of the devastation caused by the Dust Bowl disaster of the 1930s. It was the first American Dream.
During the Dust Bowl, many farmers around Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle Area experienced the worst of the Depression. By the time the summer of 1936 hit, they had already been experiencing dust storms, winds that carried away all the precious topsoil and made it impossible to grow crops, plagues of Grasshoppers and starving jackrabbits that devoured anything left over in their fields, and terrible Dust Pneumonia, caused by the dust that had settled over everything.[1] Many farmers, about a quarter of the population of the panhandle, packed up their few belongings and left for California, nicknamed the "Peach Bowl", in search of jobs as fruit harvesters. However, of the ones that did, few found the jobs they searched for, and even they had extremely low wages. These job-searchers were nicknamed "Okies", as so many of them were from Oklahoma.
John McCarty, an editor of the Dalhart Texan, formed the Last Man Club in Dalhart, Texas as a mutual support group for those farmers that chose to stay in the drought-swept Great Plains[2][3] or, as he called it, "Grab a Root and Growl."
- ^ "The Last Man - Waiting Out the Dust Bowl - edHelper.com". edhelper.com.
- ^ John L. McCarty: http://www.johncletheroe.org/usa_can/usa/dbowl2.htm
- ^ https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19350501&id=Ti4uAAAAIBAJ&sjid=lNUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6450,6761870 [dead link]