This is the story of the more than one million Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans, and Misourians who settled in California during the economically depressed 1930s and the war-boom 1940s. Not just a conventional account of hardship and economic recovery, this is a finely screened cultural exploration that brings to light the migrants' impact on California's political, religious, and recreational institutions.

In this pathbreaking book, Gregory takes us back to the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the war boom influx of the 1940s to explore the experiences of the more than one million Oklahomans, Arkansans, Texans, and Missourians who sought opportunities in California. He reaches into the migrants' lives to reveal not only their economic trials but also their impact on California's culture and society, and he traces the development of an "Okie subculture" that over the years has grown into an essential element in California's cultural landscape. The first book to examine the cultural implications of that massive 20th-century population shift, merican Exodus fills an important gap in recent American social history.