[4] The strike is remembered as the most violent confrontation in a long struggle between unions and growers for control of Stockton canneries (and the millions of acres dependent on them) and the political, economic and labor ramifications that affected California for years to come.
[2] As the 1930s began, the social and economic turmoil created in the United States by the Great Depression on one hand and the Dust Bowl on the other, resulted in an estimated 1.3 million people migrating from the midwest and southwest of the country to California to seek better living conditions.
[1] Tensions mounted as the union threatened to strike at the opening of spinach season if its demands weren't met and the California Producers and Growers warned farmers that "Communist pickets will, by force, prevent" them from getting their crops to market.
In anticipation of the strike, San Joaquin County Sheriff Harvey Odell had deputized 700 citizens and armed them with a truckload of pickaxes that he had ordered "with shaved down handles for easy swinging" from a local mill.
[1] During the height of the melee, San Joaquin County District Attorney, Forsythe Charles Clowdsley, placed a call to the California Governor Frank F. Merriam to request National Guard troops to help quell the violence.
[9] The riot resulted in a "truce" mediated by Governor Merriam in Sacramento the following Saturday during which a tentative agreement was reached between the labor representatives and the California Processors and Growers regarding wage increases and union recognition.