In the Face of Trials
As we previously discussed, the Morgan Canning Company was sold to The Utah Packing Company in 1928, due to the death of its two founders. Many employees stayed on under the new management, and the majority of local farmers, who collectively grew over 500 acres of peas for the cannery, also remained as contracted suppliers. Many of these suppliers were small, predominantly white family farms, but even with the continued pea export, many were struggling to cover expenses.
Even before the Great Depression, agriculture experienced a significant downturn in Utah due to the aftermath of World War I. Cache Valley in particular was considered a hot spot for sugar beets, but the selling price halved in the decade following the war. Within the first three years of the Great Depression, the price fell another sixty percent. Many hardworking families were forced to vastly reduce their acreage or close shop entirely.
The general work ethic of the time was commendable. Barney L. Flanagan, a labor inspector in the 1930s recounted that "the American worker was never finer" than during the Great Depression. People were willing to take the bad with the good, with their heads held high. Regardless of whether you were a road worker, a coal miner, or a farmer, what mattered was doing a good job and reaping the rewards of honest work. Workers would do anything as long as they were treated fairly. But particularly in the agriculture industry, there was a large group of people willing to do the same, even if they weren't treated fairly.
Betabeleros
Migrant betabeleros, or "beet workers," formed the backbone of Utahan agriculture, and worked just as hard, or even harder, than their white counterparts. An argument could be made that Hispanic farm workers in Utah were affected disproportionately by the Great Depression. Between 1930 and 1940, adverse working conditions, including massive droughts in 1931 and 1934, drove nearly 75% of native Mexicans from Utah. Although the situation in Utah was but a microcosm of the wider Dust Bowl catastrophe farther east, many migrant workers leaving Utah likely joined the influx of Hispanics trekking to California in hopes of work, fated to live in makeshift camps as "pea pickers" (a derogatory term to refer to the migrants).
Betabeleros who remained in Utah faced the risk of starvation, and entire families worked as a unit to receive pay worth one man. Child labor was rampant during this period, as landowners preferentially hired workers with large families of able-bodied children, tacitly expecting them to help with the farm work. Pay was intentionally kept just above sustenance level to create dependency on the employer and ensure workers would return for the next season.
Citations
Gregory, Ruth West. "Those Good Peas: The Morgan Canning Company in Smithfield, UT." Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, 1968, pp. 169-77.
Flanagan, Barney L. "A Labor Inspector during the Great Depression." Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 54, no. 3, Summer 1986, pp. 237-51.
Iber, Jorge. "'El diablo nos esta llevando': Utah Hispanics and the Great Depression." Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 2, Spring 1998, pp. 159-77.
Migrant Pea Pickers Home, Nipomo, California. https://sam.nmartmuseum.org/objects/21481/migrant-pea-pickers-home-nipomo-california. Accessed 20 Jul. 2025.