John Steinbeck

and
The Grapes of Wrath
Biographical and Historical Background
John Ernst Steinbeck
• Born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902
• Parents encouraged his love of writing
• Learned about ranch life as a teen during
summers
• Graduated from Salinas High School in 1919
• Attended Stanford University
• Poor attendance
• Steinbeck only took classes that interested
him (writing, literature, marine biology,
etc.)
• Left Stanford in 1925
• First novel, Cup of Gold, published in 1929
• Married his first wife, Carol Henning in 1930
• Carol was instrumental in writing
Steinbeck’s most famous novels
• Lived in Pacific Grove, California (near Monterey,
CA)
• Tortilla Flat (1935) received the California
Commonwealth Club’s Gold Medal for best novel
by a California author.
• The “California” novels
• In Dubious Battle (1936)
• Of Mice and Men (1937)
• The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
• War Correspondent during World War II
• Articles collected in Once There Was a War
• The Moon is Down - propaganda
• Married Gwen Congar, 1943
• Two children, Thomas and John Jr.
• Divorced in 1948
• Married Elaine Scott, 1950
• Died December 20, 1968
The Grapes of Wrath
• Written between February and October, 1938
• L’Affaire de Lettuceberg – an attempt at satire
• Steinbeck destroyed the manuscript
• “The Harvest Gypsies”
• Articles written for the San Francisco News
• Eventually published as a book
• An excellent introduction to The Grapes of Wrath
• Instant best seller
• Pulitzer Prize (1939)
• Made into a feature film (1940)
• Nobel Prize in Literature (1962)
• Banned in Kern County, California
• Steinbeck was accused of being a communist
 The Grapes of Wrath - Influences
• Learned from Tom Collins
• Manager of Arvin, a federal migrant labor
camp
• Shared reports with Steinbeck
• Steinbeck visited him and Arvin
• Ed Ricketts – friend and Marine Biologist
• Carey McWilliams – Factories in the Field
• Dorothea Lange and her photographs
• Corresponded with Steinbeck Dorothea
Lange and her photographs
• Corresponded with Steinbeck “Migrant Mother”
Dorothea Lange

Tom Collins
The Great Depression
• Farmers were struggling before the Stock Market
Crash of 1929
• Poor farming methods
• Overworked land
• Farmers went bankrupt
• Too many loans
• Crops failed
• The Dust Bowl
• Severe drought
• Topsoil blew away – Black Tuesday
• Manmade environmental catastrophe
• Millions of people lost their land
• Headed west
• Tom Joad The Joad Family
• Oldest son
• Just released from prison
• Ma Joad
• Matriarch
• “The citadel” of the family
• Pa Joad
• Father, sharecropper
• Rose of Sharon (Rosasharn)
• Daughter
• Pregnant, married to Connie
• Al Joad “The Grapes of Wrath”
• Tom’s younger brother 20th Century Fox (1940)
• Teenager, responsible for the family truck
• Jim Casy
• Former preacher
• Joins the family as they head west
The Grapes of Wrath - Overview
• Follows the Joad family as they head to
California
• Sharecroppers, lost their land
• Drive “highway 66” to California
• Roadside camping
• In California
• Squatters’ Camp/Hooverville
• Weedpatch – federal migrant labor camp
(Arvin)
• Hooper Ranch – corporate owned camp
• The Dream:
• Find work in California
• Pool their money
• Buy land and return to farming
 Major Themes
• From I to We
• Abuse of power
• Family
• Movement
• Industrial vs. Agrarian farming
• Dignity

“The Grapes of Wrath”

20th Century Fox (1940)