"A Home On The Range" tells the little-known story of Jews who fled the pogroms and hardships of Eastern Europe and traveled to California to become chicken ranchers. Even in the sweatshops of New York they heard about Petaluma where the Jews were not the shopkeepers and the professionals, they were the farmers. Meet this fractious, idealistic, intrepid group of Eastern European Jews and their descendants as they confront obstacles of language and culture on their journey towards becoming Americans. Jack London, California vigilantes, McCarthyism, the Cold War and agribusiness all come to life in this quintessentially American story of how a group of immigrants found their new home, a home on the range.
Writing
Weaves McCarthyism and agribusiness into intimate family portraits
Direction
Decades-spanning oral history with zero dusty-archive boredom
Director
Bonnie Burt
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Petaluma became known as 'the Egg Basket of the World' thanks largely to these immigrants—at peak production, one ranch alone held 250,000 chickens.
Director Judith Montell was a founding member of the Newsreel collective; this explains the film's unusual blend of radical political documentary with gentle family chronicle.
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