A book program designed to help us learn about the many varied cultures, landscapes, and stories of the American West past and present. Before the program, read the selected book, then join us as we gather together to engage in meaningful conversations and shared experiences.

First 10 households to register receive a free copy of the book!*

Our exhibition, The Cinematic West: The Art That Made the Movies, explores how artists like Charles Russell and Frederic Remington influenced early Western film directors like John Ford. Since then, many novels have inspired Western film, too, including John Ford’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. But did you know that scholars have since discovered that Steinbeck sourced a lot of his material from Sanora Babb’s notes based on her first-hand accounts?

As a native Oklahoman and a former journalist, Babb volunteered with the Farm Security Administration in 1938, taking notes from her interactions assisting migrant farmers in California. Composing her novel in 1939 based on these notes, Babb’s book was shelved when Steinbeck’s very similar story was published that year. Finally published decades later, Babb’s Whose Names Are Unknown provides a documentary-like realism of the human experience of “Okie” migrant farmers during the Dust Bowl.

Sanora Babb’s long-hidden novel Whose Names Are Unknown tells an intimate story of the High Plains farmers who fled drought dust storms during the Great Depression. Written with empathy for the farmers’ plight, this powerful narrative is based upon the author’s firsthand experience.

Babb wrote Whose Names are Unknown in the 1930s while working with refugee farmers in the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camps of California. Originally from the Oklahoma Panhandle are herself, Babb, who had first come to Los Angeles in 1929 as a journalist, joined FSA camp administrator Tom Collins in 1938 to help the uprooted farmers. As Lawrence R. Rodgers notes in his foreword, Babb submitted the manuscript for this book to Random House for consideration in 1939. Editor Bennett Cerf planned to publish this “exceptionally fine” novel but when John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath swept the nation, Cerf explained that the market could not support two books on the subject.

Babb has since shared her manuscript with interested scholars who have deemed it a classic in its own right. In an era when the country was deeply divided on social legislation issues and millions drifted unemployed and homeless, Babb recorded the stories of the people she greatly respected, those “whose names are unknown.” In doing so, she returned to them their identities and dignity, and put a human face on economic disaster and social distress.

Join us for our next Tall Tales book discussion as we read and discuss Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb. Please read the selected book prior to the program.

Registration: Required – opens September 3

Ages: 18+
Contact: Director of Adult Programs at adulteducation@SidRichardsonMuseum.org or 817.332.6554 if you have any questions or would like to be added to the wait list when registration is full.

* Registrants who receive a free copy of the book can elect to pick it up at the front desk during museum hours or have it mailed for a $7 fee. Staff will confirm your option after you register.