Migrant Labor Camp Photographs from the Harry Everett Drobish Papers, 1935-1936

Summary

Creators:

Harry Everett Drobish

Extent:

63 photographic prints; black and white; various sizes 63 digital objects

Language:

Collection materials are in English

Background

Scope and content:

This collection of 63 photographic prints of various sizes documents migrant labor camps in California. The photographs were taken in 1935-1936, many likely by Harry Everett Drobish. Included are photographs of groups and buildings at the Arvin Migratory Labor Camp and other camps in Kern County, California. Also included are photographs of Hooverville in Sacramento, some taken by the California State Emergency Relief Administration. Printed and handwritten captions found on or below the photographs are reprinted in the container listing.

Biographical / historical:

Harry Everett Drobish was born in Decatur, Illinois in 1893. He moved to Riverside, California in 1905 and graduated from high school there in 1912. After attending Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years, he transferred to the College of Agriculture of the University of California, Berkeley, becoming an active member of the University YMCA, Alpha Kappa Lambda and Alpha Zeta, the agricultural society. His first job following graduation in 1917 was itinerant assistant farm advisor for the University's Agricultural Extension Service. Several years later he was promoted to farm advisor for Butte County. In 1927 he resigned to accept an assignment as marketing investigator for the California Department of Agriculture. From 1930 to 1933 he was an agricultural economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and from 1933-1934 worked for the Farm Credit Administration. From September 1934 to 1936 he was State Director of Rural Rehabilitation in the California Emergency Relief Administration and the Chief of Farm Laborer Projects for the Resettlement Administration. As State Director he conceived the idea of federally owned camps for migrant farm workers and built the first two camps at Marysville and Arvin. In 1937 the Drobishes returned to their ranch, Far View, near Bangor. The next ten years were spent purchasing and rehabilitating abandoned olive groves and slowly developing olive growing into a profitable business. In partnership with a friend Drobish bought and rebuilt an olive oil mill.

After an unsuccessful campaign for the State Assembly in 1946, Drobish was elected State Senator of Butte County in a special election the following year. In the Senate he served on the Agriculture, Education, Institutions, and Public Utilities Committees and was vice chairman of the Committee on Public Health and Safety. He was also a member of the Senate Interim Committee on Statutory Salaries and the Joint Legislative Committee on Soil Conservation. After an unsuccessful campaign for re-election in 1950 Drobish returned to his ranch to devote his attention to the improvement of his olive groves and the California olive industry in general. In 1952 he was sent by the State Department to Jordan as consultant to their olive industry. His last years, until his death in 1954, were also devoted to increased involvement in community interests, including the YMCA and the Council for Social Action of the Congregational Church.

Acquisition information:

Transferred from the Harry Everett Drobish Papers (BANC MSS C-B 529). The papers were a gift of Faith Boardman Drobish in 1954.

Rules or conventions:

Finding Aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Location of this collection:

UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library

University of California, Berkeley, The Bancroft Library

Berkeley, CA 94720-6000, US

Contact:

510-642-6481

bancref-library@berkeley.edu

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