The very first audio I listened to was from the collection “Voices from the Dust Bowl.” I’m not sure why I picked this specific audio and frankly, I can’t be sure if I even liked it or not. It’s certainly an intriguing song performed by Ruth Elliot in the summer of 1940 in Arvin FSA camp. The song, titled “The Old Apple Tree in the Orchard,” starts off quite beautifully and simple by depicting a child reminiscing about their father and an apple tree he planted. However, the song quickly takes an interesting turn when the singer then describes the father having an affair with a married woman, followed by his subsequent murder by the neighbors for doing so.1 This song certainly brought this question to mind: why were folk songs like this so popular for everyday Americans in the 1930s?
The song was sung as if it was a common children’s rhyme that just about everyone knew and loved. Despite what the lyrics suggest, the manner in which the performer is singing gives the song more of a humorous tone than a dark one. The song doesn’t seem to have too much historical meaning as it seems to have been written solely for entertainment purposes, but perhaps the reason for entertainment in the time period creates a historical relevance for the song.
The LA Times article by Morris Dicksten suggests that the arts, primarily music and movies, were not a means simply to distract Americans from their everyday struggles but was more of a means to counteract the crippling economy.2 Dickstein was probably right in that assertion, but for everyday Americans of that time, the arts likely meant more as a distraction than an economical support system that they wouldn’t see positive effects from for many years. In the Library of Congress article, “The Migrant Experience,” the author states that “when they were not working or looking for work…the migrants found time to engage in recreational activities,” such as “singing and making music.”3 “The Old Apple Tree in the Orchard” certainly sounds like a song that was likely created out of boredom to create a lighter atmosphere than the situations the Depression and Dust Bowl created.
- Elliot, Ruth, Charles L Todd, and Robert Sonkin. Old Apple Tree in the Orchard, The. Arvin FSA Camp, 1940. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/toddbib000001/.
- Dickstein, Morris. “How Song, Dance and Movies Bailed Us out of the Depression.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2009. https://www.latimes.com/la-oe-dickstein1-2009apr01-story.html.
- “The Migrant Experience : Articles and Essays : Voices from the Dust Bowl: the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection, 1940-1941 : Digital Collections : Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress. Accessed November 30, 2019. https://www.loc.gov/collections/todd-and-sonkin-migrant-workers-from-1940-to-1941/articles-and-essays/the-migrant-experience/.
