"Renowned as an earthly paradise from whose rich soil the brilliant sun draws abundant crops of semi-tropical fruits, the Great Valley is today the state's principal source of wealth. Last week, Californians were acutely conscious that the valley could also produce squalor, misery, disease and death...[The San Joaquin Valley] is host to 70,000 jobless, homeless families living in frightful squalor and privation....hopeless men and women sprawled in the sun as their ill-clad children played in the dirt."
Read about the the mood of the Great Depression and how it was reflected in the election of 1932 - click here... This article attempted to explain to that portion of the reading public fortunate enough to have jobs, just how the county relief programs worked and what was provided to the subscribers. The journalist did not weigh-in as to whether she approved or disapproved of the program but sought to explain that in places like the Mid-West, where houses outnumbered apartment buildings, allowances for such possessions were made. In the congested cities of the East it might be expected that the family car be sold prior to receiving relief funds, but in the states where distances were greater subscribers were permitted to hold on to their cars. This is a report on the 1939 government-sponsored medical outreach program for "California's Grapes of Wrath migrants":
"The counties of San Joaquin Valley have well organized health departments... [Migrants] are entitled to drugs, special diets, eyeglasses and appliances if authorized by the medical director. Since many patients are in need not so much of medicines than of food, the Association may pay a medical grocery bill just as it pays the druggist. It also provides school lunches and nursery meals."
More on migrant laborers can be read here...
In the Summer of 1938 the New Deal administration turned its attention to the Southern States in an effort to solve the poverty that had long afflicted the region and was especially keen during the Great Depression:
"The War Between the States freed the slaves, but it did not free the South. Old plantations were broken up. Pressed to meet mortgages, farmers leased part of their farms to tenants. Cheap [African-American] labor remained and children were pressed into service on the Southern fields. Cotton and low labor costs stayed in the South."
Read about FDR's African-American advisers here...
During the summer of 1937 the U.S. Census Bureau released the data that was compiled by it's business department concerning the payrolls dolled out by the nation's wealthiest industries in 1935. The information gleaned from these payrolls indicated which were the five richest counties in the country based on personal income. These small municipalities could be found in two Eastern states, two Mid-Western states and one Western state.
Jump ahead to our own time and you'll learn how much the game has changed: today the top five wealthiest counties in the United States are all located in the Maryland and Virginia Suburbs that lie just outside the District of Columbia! | 
