As the migrants came into California in the middle thirties, they congregated in "squatter camps" along the side of roads, on the banks of canals or close to a town where they could obtain water and supplies.  These were not healthy living conditions.  The mortality rate among small children and infants was high and many were suffering from malnutrition and rickets.  Tuberculosis was prevalent among young and old alike.  Many parents did not know where to turn for help.

    The Farm Security Administration was already starting to construct camps for migrant workers because, with a few exceptions, the camps managed by the farmers were not too much better than the "squatter camps."

    The winter of 1937 and 1938 was especially severe in California.  Rivers and creeks overflowed their banks washing out squatter camps and flooding farm camps.  Families were forced to flee, often abandoning what few possessions they had.  Hundreds were left without food or water.  Private groups and government agencies rushed to their aid.  The F.S.A. intensified their efforts to get the camps built, and launched an emergency program along with medical care.

    One of the important discoveries the F.S.A. made was that when the migrant family was "taken off wheels" their annual income increased 20% due to the fact that most of their income went for gas while they traveled from place to place looking for work.

    After this discovery, the F.S.A. provided cheap, clean, generally well managed camps.  They had tent platforms, metal buildings and sanitary facilities.

    The Weedpatch Camp was one of these camps.  Beside the qualities just mentioned, they had bath and laundry facilities, a good recreational program, and schooling available for the children.  They also governed and policed themselves.  This was made possible due to the efforts of the camp manager, Tom Collins to whom John Steinbeck dedicated his book The Grapes of Wrath.  Mr. Collins was sympathetic to the plight of the migrants.  He did not see them as uneducated dirt farmers.  To him they were "colorful relics of the nations rural past."  He treated these migrants with care and dignity.

    In 1939, Tom Collins supervised the set up of one complete mobile camp.  The State Department of Public health followed the lead of the F.S.A. and put four mobile health units in the field.

    These camps were the federal government's answer to the problem created by the Dust Bowl migration.  They were clean, safe, havens to a multitude of migrants.  They also gave the children of these migrants a chance to grow up in a better world than the one they had left.  These children of the Dust Bowl camps are the teachers, community leaders and business owners of our communities today.