The Grapes of Wrath

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6 If All CNY Reads events

8 Who’s Who

9 Plot synopsis

10 Steinbeck biography

14 Frank Galati and Steppenwolfplay’s creators

15 1930’s Timeline

16 Woody Guthrie

18 Banned in Kern County

20 The Dust Bowl

22 Joads in Calfornia

23 Critical reaction

24 Voices of Dissent

25 Glossary

Facts about Route 66

24 Meet Tim Grimm

26 Migrants’ Exhibit at the MOST

27 Meet the composer

28 Classroom Discussion

30 Further Research

32 Annotated Bibliography

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Syracuse Stage Grapes of Wrath

“I have . . . many thousands of hoursin this book, every incident has beentoo carefully chosen and its weightjudged and fitted. The balance isthere. One other thing — I am notwriting a satisfying story. I've donemy damnedest to rip a reader'snerves to rags, I don't want him satis-fied. And still one more thing — Itried to write this book the way livesare being lived not the way books arewritten.“

From a letter to Pascal Covici about The Grapes of Wrath manuscript,

John Steinbeck, January 16, 1939Dictionary of Literary Biography:

Documentary Series:An Illustrated Chronicle Vol. 2. 296

Join fellow Central New Yorkers in another celebrationof reading and unity as our community explores andshares John Steinbeck's extraordinary classic TheGrapes of Wrath.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONSFebruary 4 - April 4Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: Bitter Fruit of theDepressionSpecial Collections, Syracuse University E.S. BirdLibraryCall Kathleen Manwaring at 443-9758.

February 5 - May 30"Coming up on the Season:Migrant Farmworkers inthe Northeast."Milton J. RubensteinMuseum of Science &Technology An exhibit developed bythe Cornell UniversityMigrant Program. Itexplores the world behindthe supermarket shelves. InSpanish and English.Wednesday throughSunday, 11 am to 5 pm 500 South Franklin Street,Syracuse

March 23 - April 23Weekdays 12 - 6 and during performancesOCC's Photography Exhibit on the DepressionSyracuse Stage Coyne Lobby

EVENTSFebruary 9, 6:30 - 7:30 pmSymposium: Censorship and The Grapes of WrathHosted by Friends of the Central Library Speakers: Joyce M. Latham, OCPL; Edward Conan;attorney; the Hon. George Lowe, U.S. MagistrateThe Delavan Center for the Arts501 West Fayette Street, Syracuse

February 13 at 3 pm"A Visit from John Steinbeck and Discussion"'John Steinbeck' will discuss his life and The Grapes of

Wrath. Followed by a discussion led by a faculty mem-ber of the Fayetteville Manlius High School. Manlius Library, One Arkie Albanese DriveManlius, NY (call 682 - 6400)

February 22 at 7:00 pmSteinbeck Visits: Actor portraying John Steinbeck visitsthe library in costume and character throughout to dis-cuss The Grapes of WrathFayetteville Free Library, 300 Orchard St.Fayetteville (call 637-6374)

February 24 at 4:00 pmSyracuse University Library Associates Lecture

"Reading The Grapesof Wrath: Then andNow"Harvey Teres, Professorof EnglishE.S. Bird Library,Syracuse University

March 6 at 3:00 pmHarvest of Shame -Screening and discus-sion of the hard-hittingtelevision documentarythat dramatically por-trays the hopelessness

of migrant farm workers.Manlius Library, One Arkie Albanese DriveManlius, NY (call 682 - 6400)

March 9 and March 10, 9 - 9 pmPhotography Exhibit on the DepressionWhitney Applied Technical Center AtriumOnondaga Community College

March 21, 7:30 - 8:15 pmMeet members of the cast of The Grapes of WrathBarnes and Noble, DeWitt

April 6 at 12:15 pmDr. Patrick Keane, Professor Emeritus of English atLeMoyne College and a member of the If All Of CentralNew York Read committee, will discuss the novel.Soule Branch Library, 101 Springfield Rd.Syracuse, NY (call 449-4300)

S y r a c u s e S t a g e2004-2005 Study Guide education office: 443-1150 or syracusestage.org/education.html

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If All CNY ReadsThe Grapes of Wrath

February 18 deadlineHigh School Essay Contest

Sponsored by the Post-Standard, Friends of theCentral Library and "If All CNY Read The Grapes ofWrath"Topic: The Grapes of Wrath is a book about humandignity, about the perserverance of human-kind inthe face of adversity. Write about a time when youor someone you know faced a difficult situation andtell how you (or he or she) were able to overcomethis situation.For more information call Taylor Atseff: 470-2121



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SEASON SPONSORS

James A. ClarkProducing Director

Robert MossArtistic Director

The Grapes of Wrath

PRESENT

DIRECTED BY

Michael Donald Edwards

SCENIC DESIGN

Scott BradleyCOSTUME DESIGN

Bea Modern

LIGHTING DESIGN

Lap Chu ChiSOUND DESIGN

Jonathan HerterSTAGE MANAGER

Katie Ahern

Janet AllenArtistic Director

Daniel BakerManaging Director

FROM THE NOVEL BY

John SteinbeckADAPTED BY

Frank Galati

MUSICAL DIRECTION BY

Tim Grimm


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Tom Joad: The central character, he is a recentlyreleased inmate imprisoned for murder who returnshome to find that his family has lost their farm and ismoving west to California. Tom is a plainspoken, forth-right and direct man, yet he still retains some of his vio-lent tendencies.

Ma Joad: The mother of Noah, Tom, Rose of Sharon, Al,Ruthie and Winfield, Ma Joad is a woman accustomedto hardship and deprivation. She is a forceful womanwho is determined to keep her family together at nearlyall costs.

Pa Joad: Although the head of the Joad household, he isnot a forceful presence. Without the ability to providefor his family, he recedes into the background.

Uncle John: A morose man prone to depression andalcoholism, Uncle John believes himself to be the causeof the family's misfortune. He blames himself for thedeath of his wife several years ago, and has carried theguilt of that event with him.

Rose of Sharon: Tom Joad's younger sister, recently mar-ried to Connie Rivers and pregnant with his child, Roseof Sharon is the one adult who retains a sense of opti-mism in the future.

Connie Rivers: The shiftless husband of Rose of Sharon,Connie dreams of taking correspondence courses thatwill provide him with job opportunities and the possi-bility of a better life.

Noah Joad: Tom's older brother, he suffers from mentaldisabilities that likely occurred during childbirth.

Al Joad: Tom's younger brother, at sixteen years old heis concerned with cars and girls, and remains combat-ive and truculent toward the rest of the family.

Ruthie Joad: One of the two small children in the Joadfamily, it is Ruthie who reveals that Tom is responsiblefor the murder at Hooper Ranch, forcing him to leavehis family to escape capture by the police.

Winfield Joad: The other small child in the Joad family,Winfield becomes severely ill during the course of thenovel from deprivation, but survives his illness.

Grampa Joad: An energetic, feisty old man, Gramparefuses to leave Oklahoma with the rest of his family,but is forcibly taken on the journey after he is druggedby the other family members. He dies before they crossthe state line.

Granma Joad: She becomes severely ill on the journeyto California, and dies as they reach the state.

Reverend Jim Casy: A fallen preacher who too oftensuccumbed to temptation, Casy left the ministry whenhe realized that he did not believe in absolute ideas ofsin. He espouses the idea that all that is holy comes

from collec-tive society,a belief thathe places inpracticalcontextwhen, aftertime in jail,he becomesinvolvedwith labor

activists.

Muley Graves: Muley is a crazy elderly man whoreveals to Tom Joad the fate of his family.

The Mayor: He is a half-crazed old migrant worker driv-en “bull-simple” from the police’s continued torture.

Floyd Knowles: He befriends Al Joad and tells the Joadfamily about work opportunities and the governmentcamp at Weedpatch.

Wilkie Wallace: A Weedpatch camp resident who takesTom to find work when they arrive at the governmentcamp.

Aggie Wainwright: She is the young woman to whomAl Joad becomes engaged.

Other characters include a car salesman, the camp pro-prietor, salesman, the gas station attendant, narrators,agricultural officers, the man in the barn and his sonand musicians. Some roles are double cast.

Life on the EdgeWho’s Who in The Grapes of Wrath

“A journey is like mar-riage. The certain way tobe wrong is to think you control it.”

— John Steinbeck



The farmers live in a world of dust, making littlemoney until the bank forces them off the land.In this bleak world enters a newly released

prisoner, Tom Joad. Walking toward his house, hemeets Casy, a former preacher who is sitting under atree. They begin to talk and Tom explains that he wasin prison for killing a person that pulled a knife on him.They walk together to Tom’s house but finds that it isdeserted. A friend, Muley Graves, tells them that theJoads moved to Uncle John’s house and are planning tomove west to California. Tom’s relatives, Granpa andGranma, Ma and Pa (also named Tom Joad), Tom’s par-ents, Noah, Rose of Sharon, Al, Ruthie and Winfield,Tom’s brother’s and sisters, Connie, Rose of Sharon’shusband, and Uncle John were planning on leavingwithout him.

The next morning when they are about to leave,Granpa refuses to go. The family has to get him drunkin order to force him to go. But Granpa dies shortlyafter they leave. In Arizona, they stop by a river and arehassled by a policeman. Noah decides to stay at theriver and no one can change his mind. CrossingCalifornia’s border, Granma dies and the family has tobury her a pauper since they are out of money.

In California, they stop at a camp filled with othermigrants. There they meet Floyd Knowles who explainsto them that there is no work and the wages are down.Connie and Rose talk about their future and he leavesthe tent, never to return.

During the evening, an employer comes to the camppromising work. Floyd, however, knows the system andthat the employer is trying to get a lot of workers so hecan lower the wages. The employer comes preparedwith a police officer who tries to arrest Floyd. A fightensues. Everyone runs except Casy who turns himself inas the troublemaker. The officer threatens to burn downthe camp at night. The Joads leave that night, travelingsouth to a government camp.

In the morning, Tom gets a job digging ditches forpipes. Their employer warns them that some people aregoing to cause trouble in the camp at the dance.Work runs out, so once again the Joads have to move.They find a peach harvest. In the night, Tom sneaks outand finds Casy and others on strike to raise wages.

People come by to break up the strike calling the strik-ers Reds (communists). Casey is killed, and Tom retali-ates. He’s injured, but he evades his pursuers andmakes it back to camp.

The Joads decide that it’s too dangerous for Tom, sothey decide to leave the orchard and find another placeto work while Tom is in hiding. At a cotton field thatneeds picking, they begin working while living in aboxcar shared with the Wainwrights. Al falls in lovewith Agnes Wainwright and they plan to marry. It rains

for severaldays andfloods thevalley. Somemen try todivert thewater bybuilding adyke but itbreaks whena falling treecrashesthrough it.Meanwhile,Rose ofSharon goesinto laborbut givesbirth to adead baby.

Having sur-vived theflood, thefamilysearches forhigherground. In abarn theymeet a boyand his starv-ing father.The boyexplains that

the man gave up his food to keep the boy healthy.

The man can’t digest even bread. Rose of Sharondecides to feed her breast milk to the man as the playends.

“The Grapes of Wrath is said bymany to be Steinbeck's master-piece. Its power lies not only in itssearing portrait of Dust Bowl pover-ty if it were merely a historical tractabout 1930s it would not sell over150,000 copies a year. It is also thestory of the migration of a people.It echoes Exodus. And it is the storyof a family disintegrating; of howpower shifts from patriarchy tomatriarchy; of what freedom means.It is about two key relationships.One is between Tom Joad and JimCasy, the preacher, looking for spiri-tual meaning outside the church.Tom is his pupil, and Casy guidesTom in his own rebirth into socialcommitment. But equally importantis the relationship between Ma Joadand her self-absorbed daughter,Rose of Sharon. Like Tom, she mustlearn to look beyond herself. Thenovel is thus a plea for empathyand understanding, as well as anindictment of a system that left somany destitute in a land whereexcess oranges were dumped inrivers in order to keep prices inflat-ed.”

San Jose State University

Journey Along Route 66Plot synopsis

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John Steinbeck was born in the farming town ofSalinas, California, on February 27, 1902. Hisfather, John Ernst Steinbeck moved from job to job.For a time, he was the manager of a Sperry flour

plant, the owner of a feed and grain store; the treas-urer of Monterey County. His mother, Olive

Hamilton Steinbeck, was a former teacher. As a childgrowing up in the fertile Salinas Valley, called the"Salad Bowl of the Nation,” Steinbeck formed a deepappreciation of his environment. "I remember my child-hood names for grasses and secret flowers," he wrote inthe opening chapter of East of Eden. "I remember wherea toad may live and what time the birds awaken in thesummer and what trees and seasons smelled like."

The observant, shy but often mischievous only son had,for the most part, a happy childhood growing up withtwo older sisters, Beth and Esther, and a much-adoredyounger sister, Mary. Never wealthy, the family wasnonetheless prominent in the small town of 3000. Bythe time he was 14, he decided to be a writer. He spenthours writing stories and poems in his bedroom.

To please his par-ents, in 1919 heenrolled atStanfordUniversity. ThePresident of theEnglish Club saidthat Steinbeck,who regularlyattended meetingsto read his storiesaloud, "had noother interests ortalents that I couldmake out. He wasa writer, but hewas that and noth-ing else.”

From 1919 to 1925, when he left Stanford without tak-ing a degree, Steinbeck dropped in and out of theUniversity, sometimes to work closely with migrants onCalifornia ranches. He briefly tried construction work

and newspaper reporting in New York City, and thenreturned to his native state in order to hone his craft. Inthe late 1920s, during a three-year stint as a caretakerfor a Lake Tahoe estate, he wrote several drafts of hisfirst novel, Cup of Gold (1929), about the pirate HenryMorgan, and met the woman who would become hisfirst wife, Carol Henning. After their marriage in 1930,he and Carol settled, rent-free, into the Steinbeck fami-ly's summer cottage in Pacific Grove, she to search forjobs to support them, he to write.

During the decade of the 1930s Steinbeck wrote mostof his best California fiction: His conviction that charac-ters must be seen in the context of their environmentsremained constant throughout his career. He wrote ofan interrelated world, where species and the environ-ment interacted, where commensal bonds betweenpeople, among families, acknowledged nature.

By 1933, Steinbeck had found his terrain; had chiseleda naturalistic prose style about those on the edges ofpolite society. Steinbeck's California fiction, from To aGod Unknown to East of Eden (1952) envisions thedreams and defeats of common people shaped by theenvironments they inhabit.

It was at this time he met Ed Ricketts, an amateurmarine biologist. He was Steinbeck's mentor, his alterego, and his soul mate. That 18-year friendship showsup continously in Steinbeck’s writing. In most of his fic-tion Steinbeck includes a Doc figure, a wise observer oflife who epitomizes the idealized stance of the nontele-ological thinker: Doc Burton in In Dubious Battle, Slimin Of Mice and Men, Casy in The Grapes of Wrath, Leein East of Eden, and of course Doc himself in CanneryRow (1945) and the sequel, the rollicking SweetThursday (1954). All see broadly and truly and empa-thetically.

Steinbeck's writing style as well as his social conscious-ness of the 1930s was also shaped by an equally com-pelling figure in his life, his wife Carol. She helped edithis prose, urged him to cut the Latinate phrases, typedhis manuscripts, suggested titles, and offered ways torestructure. In 1935, having finally published his firstpopular success with tales of Monterey's paisanos,Tortilla Flat, Steinbeck, goaded by Carol, attended a fewmeetings of nearby Carmel's John Reed Club. Althoughhe found the group's zealotry distasteful, he, like so

John Steinbeck1902-1968



many intellectuals of the 1930s, was drawn to the com-munists' sympathy for the working man. He set out towrite a "biography of a strikebreaker." His interviewsturned from biography to fiction, writing one of the beststrike novels of the 20th century, In Dubious Battle.

At the height of his powers, Steinbeck followed withtwo books that round out what might be called hislabor trilogy, Of Mice and Men and Grapes of Wrath.The books are a tightly-drafted study of blindestiffsthrough whose dreams he wanted to represent the uni-versal longings for a home. Both the text and the criti-cally-acclaimed 1937 Broadway play of Mice and Men(which won the Drama Critics Circle Award for bestplay that year) made Steinbeck a household name.

His next novel intensified popular debate aboutSteinbeck's gritty sub-jects, his uncompro-mising sympathy forthe disenfranchised,and his "crass" lan-guage. The Grapes ofWrath sold out anadvance edition of19,804 by mid-April1939; was selling10,000 copies a weekby early May; andwon the PulitzerPrize for the year(1940). Published atthe apex of theDepression, the bookabout dispossessedfarmers captured thedecade's angst aswell as the nation'slegacy of fierce indi-vidualism, visionaryprosperity, and deter-mined westwardmovement. It wasinformed in part bydocumentary zeal, inpart by Steinbeck'sability to trace mythicand biblical patterns.

Lauded by critics nationwide for its scope and intensity,The Grapes of Wrath attracted an equally vociferousminority opinion. Oklahomans said that the dispos-sessed Joad's story was a "dirty, lying, filthy manuscript"in the words of Congressman Lyle Boren. Californiansclaimed the novel was a scourge on the state's munifi-cence, and an indignant Kern County banned the bookwell into World War II. The righteous attacked thebook's language or its crass gestures.

Exhausted by his research, Steinbeck retreated to EdRicketts. He wanted to study seriously marine biologyand to plan a collecting trip to the Sea of Cortez. Thetext Steinbeck and Ricketts published in 1941, Sea ofCortez (reissued in 1951 without Ricketts's catalogue ofspecies as The Log from the Sea of Cortez), tells thestory of the expedition.

Steinbeck was determinedto participate in World WarII, first doing patriotic work(The Moon Is Down, 1942,a play-novelette about anoccupied northernEuropean country, andBombs Away, 1942, a por-trait of bomber trainees) andthen going overseas for theNew York Herald Tribune asa war correspondent. In hiswar dispatches he wroteabout the neglected cornersof war that many journalistsmissed-life at a Britishbomber station or the allureof Bob Hope. Thesecolumns were later collect-ed in Once There Was aWar (1958).

Steinbeck often felt misun-derstood by book reviewersand critics, and their barbsrankled the sensitive writer.A humorous text such asCannery Row seemed fluffto many.

Steinbeck faltered both pro-

John Steinbeckcontinued

AWARDS & HONORS 1935 - Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal forBest Novel by a Californian (Tortilla Flat) 1936 - Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal forBest Novel by a Californian (In Dubious Battle) 1938 - New York Drama Critics' Circle Award (Of Mice &Men) 1939 - Member of National Institute of Arts and Letters--American Booksellers' Award 1940 - Pulitzer Prize Fiction Award (The Grapes of Wrath) 1946 - King Haakon Liberty Cross (The Moon is Down) 1948 - Member of American Academy of Arts and Letters 1962 - Nobel Prize for Literature 1963 - Honorary Consultant in American Literature to theLibrary of Congress 1964 - United States Medal of Freedom - Trustee of John F. Kennedy Memorial Library - Annual Paperback of the Year Award - Press Medal of Freedom 1966 - Member of the National Arts Council 1979 - US Postal Service issued a John SteinbeckCommemorative Stamp 1983 - Steinbeck Center Foundation started in Salinas, CA 1984 - American Arts Gold Medallion of Steinbeck issuedby the US Mint 1993 - Steinbeck Center Foundation opens interim head-quarters 1997 - National Steinbeck Center groundbreaking 1998 - National Steinbeck Center grand opening (June27, 1998)

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Steinbeck’s Novels

Cup of Gold (1929) The Pastures of Heaven (1932) The Red Pony (1933) To A God Unknown (1933) Tortilla Flat (1935) In Dubious Battle (1936) Nothing So Monstrous (1936) Of Mice and Men (1937) The Long Valley (1938) The Grapes of Wrath (1939) The Forgotten Village (1941) Log from the Sea of Cortez (1941) Bombs Away (1942) The Moon Is Down (1942) Cannery Row (1945) The Wayward Bus (1947) The Pearl (1948) A Russian Journal (1948) Burning Bright (1950) East of Eden (1952) Sweet Thursday (1954) The Short Reign of Pippin IV (1957) Once There Was A War (1958) The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962) The World of Li'l Abner (1965) (with Charles

Chaplin) Viva Zapata (1975) The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights \

(1976) Zapata (1992)

Nonfiction Personal and Bibliographical Notes (1939) America and Americans (1966) In Touch (1969) Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (1969) The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes

of Wrath (1988) Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of

Wrath, 1938-1941 (1989) Of Men and Their Making: The Selected Non-

Fiction of John Steinbeck (2002)


fessionally and personally in the 1940s. He divorcedCarol in 1943. That same year he moved east with hissecond wife, Gwyndolyn Conger. With Gwyn,Steinbeck had two sons, Thom and John, but the mar-riage ended in divorce in 1948. That same yearSteinbeck was numbed by Ed Ricketts's death. Onlywith concentrated work on a filmscript on the life ofEmiliano Zapata for Elia Kazan's film Viva Zapata!(1952) would Steinbeck gradually chart a new course.

In 1949 he met and in 1950 married his third wife,Elaine Scott, and with her he moved again to New YorkCity, where he lived for the rest of his life. Much of thepain and reconciliation of those late years of the 1940swere worked out in two subsequent novels: his thirdplay-novelette Burning Bright (1950), a boldly experi-mental parable about a man's acceptance of his wife'schild fathered by another man, and in the largely auto-biographical work he'd contemplated since the 1930s,East of Eden (1952).

"It is what I have been practicing to write all of my life,"he wrote to painter Bo Beskow early in 1948, when hefirst began research for a novel about his native valleyand his people. With Viva Zapata!, East of Eden,Burning Bright and later The Winter of Our Discontent(1961), Steinbeck's fiction becomes less concernedwith the behavior of groups-what he called in the1930s "group man" and more focused on an individ-ual's moral responsibility to self and community.

Similar to The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden is a defin-ing point in his career. During the 1950s and 1960s theperpetually "restless" Steinbeck traveled extensivelythroughout the world with his third wife, Elaine.

In the fiction of his last two decades, however,Steinbeck never ceased to take risks, to stretch his con-ception of the novel's structure, to experiment with thesound and form of language. Sweet Thursday, sequel toCannery Row, was written as a musical comedy thatwould resolve Ed Ricketts's loneliness by sending himoff into the sunset with a true love, Suzy, whore with agilded heart.

The musical version by Rodgers and Hammerstein,Pipe Dream, was one of the team's few failures. In1957 he published the satiric The Short Reign of PippinIV, a tale about the French monarchy gaining ascendan-



cy. And in 1961, he published his last work of fiction,The Winter of Our Discontent, a novel about contem-porary America set in a fictionalized Sag Harbor(where he and Elaine had a summer home). He hadgrown increasingly disillusioned with American greedand waste.

The following year, 1962, Steinbeck was awarded theNobel Prize for literature; the day after the announce-ment the New York Times ran an editorial by the influ-ential Arthur Mizener, "Does a Writer with a MoralVision of the 1930s Deserve the Nobel Prize?"Wounded by the blindside attack, unwell, frustratedand disillusioned, John Steinbeck wrote no more fic-tion.

But the writer John Steinbeck was not silenced. Asalways, he wrote reams of letters to his many friendsand associates. In the 1950s and 1960s he publishedscores of journalistic pieces: "Making of a New Yorker,""I Go Back to Ireland," columns about the 1956national political conventions, and "Letters to Alicia," acontroversial series about a 1966 White House-approved trip to Vietnam where his sons were sta-tioned. In the late 1950s-and intermittently for the restof his life he worked diligently on a modern Englishtranslation of a book he had loved since childhood, SirThomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur; the unfinished proj-ect was published posthumously as The Acts of KingArthur and His Noble Knights (1976).

Immediately after completing Winter, the ailing novel-ist proposed "not a little trip of reporting," he wrote tohis agent Elizabeth Otis, "but a frantic last attempt tosave my life and the integrity of my creativity pulse." In1960, he toured America, with his dog Charley, in acamper truck designed to his specifications, and on hisreturn published the highly praised Travels withCharley in Search of America (1962), another bookthat both celebrates American individuals and decriesAmerican hypocrisy; the climax of his journey is hisvisit to the New Orleans "cheerleaders" who dailytaunted black children newly registered in whiteschools. His disenchantment with American waste,greed, immorality and racism ran deep. His last pub-lished book, America and Americans (1966), reconsid-ers the American character, the land, the racial crisis,and the seemingly crumbling morality of the Americanpeople.

In these late years, in fact since his final move to NewYork in 1950, many accused John Steinbeck of increas-ing conservatism. The man who spent a lifetime "whip-ping" his sluggard will (read Working Days: TheJournals of The Grapes of Wrath [1989] for biting testi-mony of the struggle) felt intolerance for 1960s protest-ers whose zeal, in his eyes, was unfocused and whoseanger was explosive, not turned to creative solutions.But it is far more accurate to say that the author whowrote The Grapes of Wrath never retreated into con-servatism. He lived in modest houses all his life, caringlittle for lavish displays of power or wealth.

As an artist, he was a ceaseless experimenter withwords and form, and often critics did not see quitewhat he was up to. He claimed his books had layers,yet many claimed his symbolic touch was cumber-some. He loved humor and warmth, but some said heslopped over into sentimentalism. He was, and is nowrecognized as, an environmental writer. He was anintellectual, passionately interested in his odd littleinventions, in jazz, in politics, in philosophy, history,and myth.

All said, Steinbeck remains one of America's most sig-nificant 20th-century writers, whose popularity spansthe world, whose range is impressive, whose outputwas prodigious: 16 novels, a collection of short stories,four screenplays (The Forgotten Village, The Red Pony,Viva Zapata!, Lifeboat), a sheaf of journalistic essays-including four collections (Bombs Away, Once ThereWas a War, America and Americans, The HarvestGypsies) three travel narratives (Sea of Cortez, ARussian Journal, Travels with Charley), a translation andtwo published journals (more remain unpublished).Three "play-novelettes" ran on Broadway: Of Mice andMen, The Moon Is Down, and Burning Bright, as didthe musical Pipe Dream. Whatever his "experiment" infiction or journalistic prose, he wrote with empathy,clarity, perspicuity: "In every bit of honest writing inthe world," he noted in a 1938 journal entry, "...thereis a base theme. Try to understand men, if you under-stand each other you will be kind to each other.Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearlyalways leads to love."

- by Susan Shillinglawdirector, Center for Steinbeck studies

San Jose State University


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STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY

The company is a Chicago-based international performing arts institution committed to ensemble collaboration andartistic risk through its work with its permanent ensemble,guest artists, partner institutions and the community.Steppenwolf has redefined the landscape of acting andperformance by spawning a generation of America's mostgifted artists. Founded in 1976 as an ensemble of nineactors, Steppenwolf has grown into an internationallyrenowned company of thirty-five artists whose talentsinclude acting, directing, playwriting, filmmaking, andtextual adaptation. No other American theater ensemblehas survived as long and thrived as much as theSteppenwolf company of artists.

Members include:Joan Allen, a Tony-winner for Steppenwolf's Burn Thisand nominee for The Heidi Chronicles. She appeared innumerous films and was nominated for an Oscar for herrole in The Contender.

Gary Cole, known for his role in The West Wing, OfficeSpace, and his turn as Mike Brady in The Brady Bunchfilms.

John Mahoney. His awards include a Tony Award for TheHouse of Blue Leaves and an Emmy Award for Frasier.

John Malkovich received Academy Award nominations for Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire.

Frank Galati is professor of Performance Studies atNorthwestern, Associate Director of theGoodman Theatre and ensemble member of the

Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Professor Galati's teach-ing and creative interests are in the area of presentation-al aesthetics, with special interests in modern literature.He is a professional actor, director, screenwriter, andplaywright.

He has earned national and international acclaim forhis work as adaptor and director of The Grapes ofWrath, which won him two Tony Awards in 1989, one

for Best Direction of a Play and the other for Best Play.He also won the prestigious Outer Critics Circle Awardand the Drama Desk Award.

In 1989, he was nominated by both the BritishAcademy Awards and the Academy of Motion PictureArts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in thecategory of best adapted screenplay for The AccidentalTourist. He directed the critically acclaimed productionof Ragtime, which has played in Toronto, Los Angeles,New York, and Chicago.

In 2000 he was made a member of the AmericanAcademy of Arts and Sciences.

Frank GalatiAdaptor

Awards

1990 Tony Award® Best Play

1990 Tony Award® Best Featured Actor in aPlay Terry Kinney [nominee] Gary Sinise [nominee]

Noteable cast

Gary Sinese (Forrest Gump and CSI NY)played Tom JoadSkip Sudduth (Sully on Third Watch) played avariety of roles.

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1930: Photo flashbulbs replace dangerous flash powder. 1930: Nancy Drew starts solving mysteries in novels forgirls. 1930: "Golden Age" of radio begins in U.S. 1930: A more practical, affordable car radio goes onsale. 1930: Grant Wood paints American Gothic. 1930: Sinclair Lewis becomes the first American to winthe Nobel Prize in Literature. 1931: Scotch Tape. 1931: Scrabble. 1931: Radios sit in two of every five U.S. homes. 1931: Salvador Dali's painting, Persistence of Memory. 1931: In Berlin, lone genius Konrad Zuse invents acomputer, but is ignored. 1931: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie,eventually a classic, is published. 1931: “The Star Spangled Banner” becomes U.S.national anthem. 1932: Disney adopts a three-color Technicolor processfor cartoons. 1933: Dorothy Day founds The Catholic Worker, sup-ports pacifism, social causes. 1934: On Broadway, Cole Porter's musical, AnythingGoes opens.1934: Benny Goodman onNBC's Let's Dance startsbig band swing era onradio. 1934: Half of the homes inthe U.S. have radios. 1935: Howard Armstrongintroduces FM radio, but itsreal future is 15 years off. 1935: IBM's electric type-writer comes off the assem-bly line. 1935: First telephone callmade around the world. 1935: Kodachrome is thefirst successful amateurcolor film. 1935: Two-way speaker system becomes a standard forcinemas. 1935: Tweeter and woofer reduce loudspeaker distor-tion.

1935: John Steinbeck attains reputation with TortillaFlat, stories about California. 1936: William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! examinesSouthern attitudes toward race. 1936: Electric guitars. 1936: Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind may bemost popular novel ever. 1936: BBC starts world's first television service, threehours a day. 1936: The March of Time is honored for its newsreels. 1936: 33 million radio sets in the U.S. 1937: George Stibitz of Bell Labs invents the electricaldigital calculator. 1937: Decades of reporting pay off with passage ofchild labor law. 1937: NBC has 111 affiliate stations; CBS has 105. 1937: More than half of all American homes now boasta radio. 1937: J.R.R. Tolkien opens up a fantasy world with hisnovel, The Hobbit.1938: Radio broadcasts can be taped and edited. 1938: 50 million radio sets in the U.S. 1938: The first full-length animated film, Disney's SnowWhite and the Seven Dwarfs. 1938: Two brothers named Biro invent the ballpoint pen

in Argentina. 1938: More than 80million movie tickets(65% of population)sold in U.S. eachweek. 1939: Rudolph, theRed-Nosed Reindeer,joins the Christmas fes-tivities. 1939: Regular elec-tronic U.S. TV broad-casts begin. 1939: Air mail serviceacross the Atlantic. 1939: Movies: TheWizard of Oz, Gone

with the Wind1939: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, describesDust Bowl migration. 1939: Pocket Books enters paperback market.

FACTS about this decade. Population: 123,188,000 in 48 states Life Expectancy: Male, 58.1; Female, 61.6 Average salary: $1,368 Unemployment rises to 25% Huey Long propses a guaranteed annual income of$2,500 Car Sales: 2,787,400 Food Prices: Milk, 14 cents a qt.; Bread, 9 cents aloaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound Lynchings: 21

1930s TimelineS

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Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born on July14, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, the sec-ond-born son to Charles and Nora Belle

Guthrie. His father was a cowboy, land speculator, andlocal politician. A keen observer of the world aroundhim, during his early years in Oklahoma, Woody expe-rienced the first in a series of tragic personal losses thedeath of his older sister, Clara would haunt himthroughout his life. This was followed by the financialand physical ruin of his family and the institutionaliza-tion of his mother. These events would devastateWoody's family and home, forming a uniquely wry andrambling outlook.

In 1931, when Okemah's boomtown period went bust,Woody left for Texas. In the panhandle town of Pampa,he fell in love and married Mary Jennings in 1933, theyounger sister of a friend and musician named MattJennings. It was with Matt Jennings and Cluster Bakerthat Woody made his first attempt at a career, formingThe Corn Cob Trio. However, if the Great Depressionmade it hard to support his family, the Great DustStorm, which hit the Great Plains in 1935, made itimpossible. Due to the lack of work, and driven by asearch for a better life, Woody headed west along withthe mass migration of "dust bowl refugees" known as"Okies."

Moneyless and hungry, Woody hitchhiked, rode freighttrains, and even walked to California, developing a lovefor traveling on the open road.

By the time he arrived in California, in 1937, Woodyhad experienced the intense scorn, hatred, and antago-nism of resident Californians who were opposed to theinflux of outsiders. Woody's identification with outsiderstatus would become part and parcel of his politicaland social positioning, one which gradually worked itsway into his songwriting, as evident in his Dust Bowlballads such as I Ain't Got No Home, Goin' Down theRoad Feelin' Bad, Talking Dust Bowl Blues, Tom Joadand Hard Travelin'. His 1937 radio broadcasts broughtWoody and his new singing partner, Maxine Crissman

or Lefty Lou, wide public attention, while providing himwith a forum from which he could develop his talentfor controversial social commentary and criticism ontopics ranging from corrupt politicians, lawyers, andbusinessmen to praising the humanist principles of JesusChrist, Pretty Boy Floyd, and Union organizers.

In 1939 Woody headed east for New York City, wherehe was embraced for his Steinbeckian homespun wis-dom and musical "authenticity" by leftist organizations,artists, writers, musicians, and other intellectuals.

Lead Belly, Cisco Houston, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, WillGeer, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Josh White,Millard Lampell, Bess Hawes, Sis Cunningham, amongothers, became Woody's friends and collaborators, tak-

ing up social causes and fighting for the things theybelieved in the only way they knew how: through polit-

continued

Woody GuthrieBalladier of the Dust Bowl

Photo courtesy of the Woody Guthrie Foundation and ArchivesWoody Guthrie portrait c. 1943 by Robin Carson

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ical songs of protest.

Woody Guthrie continued to write songs and performwith the Almanac Singers, the politically radical singinggroup of the late 1940s, some of whose memberswould later re-form as the Weavers, the most commer-cially successful and influential folk music group of thelate 1940s and early 1950s. The Almanacs helped toestablish folk music as a viable commercial entity.

Woody received an invitation to go to Oregon, where adocumentary film project about the building of theGrand Coulee Dam sought to use his songwriting tal-ent. The Bonneville Power Authority placed Woody onthe Federal payroll for a month. There he composedThe Columbia River Songs.

In 1945, Guthrie married Marjorie Mazia, a MarthaGraham dancer, enabling him to complete and publishhis first novel, Bound for Glory, in 1943. A semi-auto-biographical account of his Dust Bowl years, Bound for

Glory generally received critical acclaim. One of theirfour children is the singer Arlo Guthrie.

Moved by his passion against fascism, during WorldWar II, Woody served in both the Merchant Marine andthe Army.

In 1946, Woody Guthrie returned to settle in ConeyIsland, New York, with his wife and children. It wasduring this time that Woody composed Songs to GrowOn, a collection of children's songs.

He eventually left home and after becoming moreunpredictable during a final series of road trips, Woodyeventually returned to New York. After several bad diag-nosis, he learned he had Huntington's Chorea, thedegenerative disease which would gradually and even-tually rob him of all his health and talents. This was thedisease which had forced his mother's institutionaliza-tion. He struggled with the disease until he died inQueens, New York, on October 3, 1967.

Woody Guthriecontinued

AIN'T GOT NO HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE

I ain't got no home, I'm just a-ramblin' roundI'm just a wandrin' worker, I roam from town to town.The police make it hard wherever I may goAnd I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

My brothers and my sisters are stranded on this roadA hot and dusty road that a million feet done trod;Rich man took my home and drove me from my doorAnd I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Was a-farmin' on the share, and always I was poorMy crops I laid into the banker's store;My wife took down and died upon the cabin floorAnd I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Now as I look round, it's mighty plain to seeThe world is such a great and a funny place to be;The gamblin' man is rich and the workin' man is poorAnd I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Woody Guthrie


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“GRAPES OF WRATH BANNED IN KERN COUNTY”

By Elise PalosCalifornian Historian June 1994

(Editor’s note: In the 1993 State level competition in History Day inCalifornia, the author received the Heilbron Award given to theCalifornia Historical Society for this paper. At the time she was a juniorat East Bakersfield High School.)

When John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath waspublished in 1939, it caused an uproar in this nation.The inside cover of the novel states, "It electrified anAmerica still convalescing ideas that many peoplewere, at the least, uncomfortable with this electricitycaused the Kern County Board of Supervisors to ban thebook in the county's public schools and libraries onAugust 22, 1939.

The Grapes of Wrath was mostly set in Kern County,California and illustrated the corporate landowners cru-elty towards the "exploited agricultural workers. Theseagricultural workers were usually derogatorily called"Okies," because most of them had migrated fromOklahoma. Others came from Arkansas, Kansas, andNew Mexico. After the years of drought in the area thatbecame known as the Dust Bowl and after they werethrown off their land, these farmers moved to Californiato start a new life, hoping to own their land. However,their luck was not as large as their hope and many wereleft homeless and unemployed.

According to Steinbeck's novel, this was because theCalifornia landowners barely paid the workers enoughto live on. Apparently, this offended some of KernCounty's citizens, especially the Associated Farmers ofKern County. They completely supported the Board ofSupervisors' resolution that stated the novel "misrepre-sented conditions in the county and the whole SanJoaquin Valley and blamed the local farmers for theplight of the indigent farmers. The group also solicitedother organizations in the valley for support. W.B.Camp, a prominent rancher of the time and president ofthe Associated Farmers, said that his organization would"fight to remove the 'smear' on the good name of Kern,the state of California and agriculture.

Despite the denials of those who felt they were falselyportrayed by Steinbeck, there are those who were therethat say it is true. When asked by Kathi Durham onMarch 9, 1981 if Steinbeck's portrayal of the treatmentof the farm workers was accurate. Eua1 MurmdukeStone said, "Oh, they treated them like dogs, they wastreated like dogs. They only wanted them to get theircrops picked." Stone could be considered an "Okie,"since he moved from Oklahoma to California in 1929.Also, Mary DeArmond, a Bakersfield High and EastBakersfield High School teacher from 1938 to 1943,stated. "It (The Grapes of Wrath) was all true.

Even though the Associated Farmers and the Board ofSupervisors couldn't get the unfair and untrue rap tostick, they tried to convince the county they were ban-ning The Grapes of Wrath because of the book'sobscenity. W.B. Camp explained. "We are angry, notbecause we were attacked but because we wereattacked by a book obscene in the extreme sense of theword..." Kern County supervisor Stanley Abel defendedthe board by saying on August 28, 1939, "The book wasbanned because of the filth that is in it. True, there were"dirty words" throughout the book, as most peoplewould call them today but the characters in this novelwere not exactly the most refined and educated.Besides, didn't the board's resolution banning the bookstate that it misrepresented conditions in the county?Which one was the true, motivating reason'?

Whether or not the book stated untruths or wasobscene, there were many Kern County residents whobelieved the ban was a threat to the First Amendment,including organizations like the National Council ofFreedom from Censorship and the American CivilLiberties Union (ACLU). Raymond W. Henderson, rep-resentative of the Kern County branch of the ACLU, didnot believe The Grapes of Wrath should be given toschool children and that the ACLU wasn't interested inthe truth of the book, but said, "What we do protest is apublic board setting itself up as a board of censorshipin violation of the first amendment of the federalConstitution. Vernon Bell, a Kern County resident dur-

continued

BannedCensorship and The Grapes of Wrath

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Bannedcontinued

ing the ban, declared when asked about The Grapes ofWrath, "Censorship is a threat to our way of Americanlife.

Finally, after a year and a half, the Kern County Boardof Supervisors unanimously voted to cancel the ban inJanuary of 1941. However, the book wasn't allowedto be used in the Kern High School District until 1972,when Bell requested to teach it to his classes at EastBakersfield High School. Now it is taught every year.Hopefully, Kern County students and others will nowunderstand what it was like to truthfully be an "Okie" inCalifornia, despite the once strong protests of thelandowners. Steinbeck did us all a great favor by com-municating the truth.

The Grapes of Wrath has come a long way in KernCounty. It is now ironic to think what once left a bittertaste in California's mouth, became "the most popularbook in America." Some critics call it "... the greatestfictional work of a generation." It just goes to show,censorship can't stop an "electrifying" novel.

“For myself I don't like anything personal to intrude on this orany other book but this one in particular. I think a book shouldbe itself, complete and in print. What went into the writing ofit is no business of the reader. I disapprove of having mycrabbed hand exposed. The fact that my writing is small maybe a marvel but it is also completely unimportant to the book.No, I want this book to be itself with no history and no writer.”

--John Steinbeck in a letter to Pascal Coviciabout The Grapes of Wrath manuscript

February 1939

"The writer is charged withexposing our many griev-ous faults and failures forthe purpose of improve-ment ... Furthermore, thewriter is delegated todeclare and celebrateMan's proven capacity forgreatness of heart andspirit - for gallantry indefeat, and for courage,compassion and love."

John Steinbeckin his Nobel Prize

acceptance speech.


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The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about adecade. Its primary area of impact was on thesouthern Plain States. Drought, windblown dust

and agricultural decline plagued a once fertile area. Theagricultural devastation helped to lengthen theDepression whose effects were felt worldwide. Thisprompted an exodus of people to California.

John Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath:"And then the dispossessed were drawn west fromKansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevadaand Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thou-sand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand andtwo hundred thousand. They streamedover the mountains, hungry and rest-less restless as ants, scurrying to findwork to do to lift, to push, to pull, topick, to cut anything, any burden tobear, for food. The kids are hungry. Wegot no place to live. Like ants scurry-ing for work, for food, and most of allfor land."

Poor agricultural practices and years ofsustained drought caused the DustBowl. Plains grasslands had beendeeply plowed and planted to wheat.During the years when there was ade-quate rainfall, the land producedbountiful crops. But as the droughts ofthe early 1930s deepened, the farmerskept plowing and planting eventhough nothing would grow.

Over the ensuing years, the ground cover that held thesoil in place blew away. The Plains winds whippedacross the fields raising billowing clouds of dust to theskies. The skies could darken for days, and even themost wellsealed homes could have a thick layer of duston furniture. In some places the dust would drift likesnow, covering farmsteads.

Farmers abandoned their land when the drought anddust storms showed no signs of letting up. Others wereforced out when banks foreclosed on their land. In all,one-quarter of the population left, packing everythingthey owned into their cars and trucks, and headed westtoward California. Although three out of four farmersstayed on their land, the mass exodus depleted the pop-ulation in certain areas. In the area outside Boise City,

Oklahoma, the population dropped forty percent, with1,642 small farmers and their families pulling up stakes.

The Dust BowlHow the Joad’s fortunes fell

http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/dust.html

See a video of a dust storm during the dust bowl:

www.ksu.edu/vids.dust002.mpg

Warning, it might take a while to load.

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And then the dispossessed were drawn west — fromKansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevadaand Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thou-sand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand andtwo hundred thousand. They streamed over the moun-tains, hungry and restless — restless as ants, scurryingto find work to do — to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, tocut — anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kidsare hungry. We got no place to live.

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, New York, NY(Viking Critical Library), 1972, p. 317

(originally published in 1939)www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/peopleevents/pandeAMEX08.html

He [Woody Guthrie] wrote a song that summer [1938]called "Dust Bowl Refugees," which was a term hehated .... Often, he introduced the song by saying, "You know, there are different kinds of refugees. Thereare people who are forced to take refuge under a rail-road bridge because they ain't got noplace else to go,and there are those who take refuge in public office ..."He had learned not to joke about the people who livedunder railroad bridges, but he hadn't lost his sense ofhumor. Joe Klein, Woody Guthrie: A Life, London, 1981,

The Dust Bowlcontinued

I'm a dust bowl refugee,Just a dust bowl refugee,From that dust bowl to the peach bowl,Now that peach fuzz is a-killin' me.'Cross the mountains to the sea,Come the wife and kids and me.It's a hot old dusty highwayFor a dust bowl refugee.

Hard, it's always been that wayHere today and on our wayDown that mountain, 'cross the desert,Just a dust bowl refugee.

We are ramblers, so they say,We are only here today,Then we travel with the seasons,We're the dust bowl refugees.From the south land and the drought land,Come the wife and kids and me,And this old world is a hard worldFor a dust bowl refugee.

Yes, we ramble and we roamAnd the highway that's our home,It's a never-ending highwayFor a dust bowl refugee.

Yes, we wander and we workIn your crops and in your fruit,Like the whirlwinds on the desertThat's the dust bowl refugees.

I'm a dust bowl refugee,I'm a dust bowl refugee,And I wonder will I alwaysBe a dust bowl refugee?

Lyrics as recorded by Woody Guthrie, RCA Studios, Camden,NJ, 26 April 1940Transcribed by Manfred Helfert© 1960 Ludlow Music Inc., New York, NY


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A Migrant’s LifeThe Joads in California

The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migrationin American history. By 1940, 2.5 million peo-ple had moved out of the Plains states; of

those, 200,000 moved to California. When theyreached the border, they did not receive a warm wel-come, as described in this 1935 excerpt from Collier'sMagazine. "Very erect and primly severe, [a man]addressed the slumped driver of a rolling wreck thatscreamed from every hinge, bearing and coupling.'California's relief rolls are overcrowded now. No use tocome farther,' he cried. The half-collapsed driverignored him merely turned his head to be sure hisnumerous family was still with him. They were so tight-ly wedged in, that escape was impossible. 'There reallyis nothing for you here,' the neat trooperish young manwent on. 'Nothing, really nothing.' And the forlorn manio the moaning car looked at him, dull, emotionless,incredibly weary, and said: 'So? Well, you ought to seewhat they got where I come from.' "

The Los Angeles police chief went so far as to send 125policemen to act as bouncers at the state border. Called"the bum brigade," by the press and the object of a law-suit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the LAPDposse was recalled only when the use of city funds forthis work was questioned.

Arriving in California, the migrants were faced with alife almost as difficult as the one they had left. ManyCalifornia farms were corporate-owned. They were larg-er and more modernized that those of the southernplains, and the crops were unfamiliar. The rolling fieldsof wheat were replaced by crops of fruit, nuts and veg-etables. Some 40 percent of migrant farmers wound upin the San Joaquin Valley, picking grapes and cotton.They took up the work of Mexican migrant workers,120,000 of whom were repatriated during the 1930s. Life for migrant workers was hard. They were paid bythe quantity of fruit and cotton picked, with earningsranging from seventy-five cents to $1.25 a day. Out ofthat, they had to pay twenty-five cents a day to rent atar-paper shack with no floor or plumbing. In largerranches, they often had to buy their groceries from a

high-priced company store.

The sheer number of migrants camped out, desperatefor work, led to scenes such as that described by JohnSteinbeck in his novel, The Grapes of Wrath."Maybe he needs two hundred men, so he talks to five

hundred, an' they tell other folks, an' when you get tothe place, they's a thousand' men. This here fella says,"I'm payin' twenty cents an hour." An' maybe half a themen walk off. But they's still five hundred that's so god-damn hungry they'll work for nothin' but biscuits. ...The more fellas he can get, less he's gonna pay. An'he'll get a fella with kids if he can."

As roadside camps of poverty-stricken migrants prolifer-ated, growers pressured sheriffs to break them up.Groups of vigilantes beat up migrants, accusing them ofbeing Communists, and burned their shacks to theground. To help the migrants, Roosevelt's Farm SecurityAdministration built 13 camps.

When migrants reached California and found that mostof the farmland was tied up in large corporate farms,many gave up farming. They set up residence near larg-er cities in shacktowns called Little Oklahomas orOkievilles, on open lots local landowners divided intotiny subplots and sold cheaply, for $5 down and $3 inmonthly installments. They built their houses from scav-enged scraps, and lived without plumbing and electrici-ty. Polluted water and a lack of trash and waste facilitiesled to outbreaks of typhoid, malaria, smallpox andtuberculosis.

Over the years, they replaced their shacks with realhouses, sending their children to local schools andbecoming part of the communities, although they con-tinued to face discrimination when looking for work,and were called "Okies" and "Arkies" by the locals,regardless of where they came from.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/peopleevents/pandeAMEX08.html



With its release in April of 1939, The Grapesof Wrath swept the country, bringing on astorm of reviews. In his writing on

Steinbeck's career, Peter Lisca recalled the impact of thebook's publication: “The Grapes of Wrath was a phe-nomenon on the scale of a national event. It was pub-licly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated onnational radio hook-ups; but above all, it was read."Steinbeck's passionate portrayal of the journey of thestarving Joad family from the dust bowls of Oklahomato the fertile valley of California evoked an emotionalresponse in all that read it.

Earle Birney, a prize-winning Canadian author withsympathies similar to Steinbeck, called the writing ofthe book, "a 'deed' — the act of a man out of the pityand wrath of his heart," while a critic for the LondonTimes named it "one of the most arresting [novels] of itstime." Steinbeck's popularity with the American publicsoared, as they found his words to be from the heart ofa man whose novels celebrated life and the commonfellowship of man. This ability to evoke emotion led toserious criticism of the message of The Grapes ofWrath, as Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist anda socialist from both the left and the right of the politi-cal spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks camefrom the Associated Farmers of California, as they weredispleased with the book's depiction of Californiafarmer's attitudes and conduct toward the migrants.They denounced the book as a "pack of lies" andlabeled it "communist propaganda." Along with thisgroup, Steinbeck's novel garnered a negative responsefrom a variety of other sources.

Burton Rascoe of Newsweek called Grapes of Wrath a"mess of silly propaganda, superficial observation, care-less infidelity to the proper use of idiom, tastelesspornographical and scatagorical talk." Despite theprevalence of these glaringly critical responses, mostother negative thoughts were on Steinbeck's literarytechnique, writing style, or characterization. Coupledwith almost every one of these negative responses, wasthe reviewer's insistence that this novel was a great andimportant one. Writing for the New York Times BookReview, Peter Monro Jack qualifies his criticisms about

plot structure: "All this is true enough but the real truthis that Steinbeck has written a novel from the depths ofhis heart with a sincerity seldom equaled. It may be anexaggeration, but it is the exaggeration of an honest andsplendid writer." While provoking criticism from variousgroups for the book's message, and various reviewersfor technical aspects, The Grapes of Wrath captured thepopularity of the American public, securing it as one ofthe best protest novels of all time.

In the subsequent years since The Grapes of Wrath waspublished its positive support continues to dominate thereviews. Capturing generation after generation with itspowerful story, the novel remains popular with the pub-lic, selling over 100,000 copies annually. A Time criticcalled The Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck's "strongest andmost durable novel … a concentration of Steinbeck'sartistic and moral vision." In looking back onSteinbeck's long career, The Grapes of Wrath stands outto many as the pinnacle of his work. Max Westbrookechoed this when he wrote about two of Steinbeck'sother works: "Neither novel comes to grips with theproblems handled so courageously in The Grapes ofWrath." Over the years, the Grapes of Wrath's emotion-al and social impact has become apparent.

Louis Owens writes, "Grapes of Wrath is one ofAmerica's great novels and the zenith of JohnSteinbeck's career." With its powerful images and emo-tional struggle, this story has provoked debate andresponse since the day it was published. JohnTimmerman sums up the book's impact: "The Grapes ofWrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novelin criticism, reviews, and college classrooms of 20thcentury American literature." Even the contemporarycries that The Grapes of Wrath was communist propa-ganda have died down, as subsequent reviewers havebeen able to look at the work from the objective stanceof a different time period. Nancy McWilliams andWilson McWilliams note that Steinbeck "was a conser-vative, a man who valued and even clung to the oldAmerica." Daniel Aaron remarked that the novel was"an insider's plea to the popular conscience, not a callfor revolution." From the beginning, The Grapes ofWrath has ignited intense social and literary debateamong the public and scholars alike. With this discus-sion has come a recognition that this novel is not onlythe best of Steinbeck's career, but is also one ofAmerica's best.

A Mixed ReceptionA critical view

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Political dissent forever percolates in the Americanconsciousness. The need for Americans to con-trol their own destiny that sent the first immi-

grants to this country bubbles up throughout the cen-turies. In the 1930s, the need for this control bubbledover in American life, literature, art and politics.Director Michael Edwards wants to capture allof this turmoil and debate in his production ofGrapes of Wrath.

In the 1930s, unrest and dissatisfaction touchedmainstream life. The financial calamitiesbrought about by the Depression gave voice toliberal thought that had been brewing since theRussian Revolution. People felt betrayed byauthority. They had trusted bankers and othercommunity leaders and now those trusted lead-ers were repossessing businesses, farms andthrowing families out on the streets. People hadbelieved in a community safety net and feltbetrayed. Thousands were uprooted from theirhomes and were transplanted to hostile com-munities. People who had led comfortablemiddleclass lives were made penniless. Otherfamilies knew they were barely hanging on to the lifethey knew. The fear made them wary of outsiders. JohnSteinbeck captures this hostility in the Grapes of Wrath.He saw how hostility and poverty made so many ques-tion authority and he documents it in his novel. Themisplaced misery and poverty created mainstream sup-port for unions and socialist ideals. And what had beena fringe idea, dislike of authority, crossed over to themainstream culture.

John Steinbeck picked up on this thought. He had writ-ten about injustice before, and it is in Grapes of Wrathwhere he gives voice to a movement for social change.His involvement in a liberal dialogue can be tracedback — as it can with so many great liberal thinkers ofthe 1930s — to John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook theWorld (1919). At his wife’s urging, Steinbeck attended aJohn Reed club in California. He disliked the club’s rad-ical communist politics, but he shared its fervor forworkers’ rights.

As many artists of his time did, Steinbeck lookedaround him and chronicled the many inequalities insociety in the hope that he could bring about change.He was not not alone. Many writers in the 1930s foundfault with society’s rejection of the dispossessed anddocumented it through their poetry or fiction. Workssuch as John Dos Passos’ U.S.A., James Farrell's StudsLonigan, Richard Wright's Native Son, EdwardNewhouse’s You Can't Sleep Here, Robert Cantwell's

Land of Plenty, Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust,James Agee’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men andDalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun all give voice to adissatisfaction that permeated the land.

These writers gave voice to the need for social equality.They spoke out against unfair treatment of workers.They showed prejudice. And for Steinbeck the bookwas much more than fiction. He conducted hours ofinterviews. He met with strike leaders and had his heartbroken by the sight of hungry children.

His words set off a sea change in society. People criti-cized Steinbeck for what they called his slanted view,but Eleanor Roosevelt came to his defense. Steinbeckeducated the American public about the inequities ofthe California camps. And his ability to convey themigrant workers’ plight led to legislative reforms and animproved life for the people who inspired him to writeabout the Joads.

The Great DepressionVoices of dissent

Did you know?

Steinbeck’s wife, Carol, came up with thetitle of the book from the lyrics of "TheBattle Hymn of the Republic"

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of thecoming of the Lord; He is trampling outthe vintage where the grapes of wrath arestored ... "

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Route 66 Facts Route 66 is 2448 miles long. (about 4000 km) Route 66 was commissioned in 1926, picking up as many as possible bits and pieces of existing road. Route 66 crosses eight states and three time zones. Route 66 starts in Chicago, and ends in L.A. (Santa Monica).Some people think driving it in the opposite direction is historically wrong, but it's mainly a lot harder as all avail-able documentation goes the "right" way. In 1926 only 800 miles of Route 66 were paved. Only in 1937 did Route 66 get paved end-to-end. You can only drive parts of Route 66 these days ... it has been replaced by the interstate highways I-55, I-44, I-40,I-15 and I-10, but still a surprisingly high amount of old road is waiting to be found by the more adventurous trav-eler. Route 66 is also know as "The Mother Road," "The Main Street of America" and "The Will Rogers Highway." During all of its life, Route 66 continued to evolve, leaving many abandoned stretches of concrete still waiting tobe found by the more adventurous traveler. Route 66 was also the title of a TV series playing from 1960 till 1964 Cyrus Stevens Avery from Tulsa, Oklahoma can be called the father of Route 66. In 1985 Route 66 was officially decommissioned, but for daily use it was replaced far earlier by the Interstates.

Billy goating: Goofing off, fooling around (Act I)

Brood sow: A pig used for breeding (Act I)

Bull-simple: Stubbornly ignorant (Act II)

Hardscrabble: Being or relating to a place of barren orbarely arable soil. Getting a meager living from poorsoil; or marked by poverty. (Act I)

Hayseed: Derogatory work for someone from the coun-try (Act II)

Jack in his jeans: Money in his pocket (Act I)

Jalopies: Slang for car (Act I)

Jehovites: A Protestant fundamentalist sect. (Act I)

Mitts: (Act I) Slang for hands

Red: Communist (Act II)

Sacka Durham: Tobacco (Act II)Side meat: Uncured bacon (Act II)

Sixty-six: Before the federal Interstate system, Route 66was the major way to cross the southwestern part of thecountry. (Act I)

Talking in tongues (Act I): A tradition from thePentecostal Church. They believe that they get so closeto God during the Church service that the Holy Spiritenters their bodies and speaks through them. The lan-guage they speak in this state is not any known lan-guage and is called speaking in tounges.(Act I)

Threshing machine: Machine used for harvesting cornand wheat. (Act I)

Tom cattin: Looking for women (Act I)

Trap: Mouth (Act II)

Two bits: A quarter (Act II)

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Americans tend to perceive migrant farm workers as an issue for the West, where popular culture, the flow ofundocumented workers across the Mexican border, and the decades long effort to organize harvest labor havemade them visible. In the Northeast, save the attention journalists and scholars focused on the scandalous housingconditions in Long Island and western New York State migrant camps in the 1960s, migrant agricultural laborershave scarcely come before the public eye. Yet migrants — domestic and offshore, families and single men, "dayhaul" from nearby cities or workers housed for a season — have been recruited to harvest crops in the Northeastfor at least a century.

The Cornell project — through photographs, personal stories, and statistics — endeavors to explain whyNortheastern growers originally turned to migrant labor and why they do so today. It constructs a portrait of thepeople who come to work seasonally on the Northeast's farms and fields, what motivates their migration and whytheir lives at home and away from home are like. Many migrant agricultural workers — yesterday and today — arenot rootless; they have a place they understand and value as home, and their migrancy is critically related to it.The exhibition explores how changing consumer tastes, agricultural practices and demographics have affected theemployment of migrant farm workers in different parts of this region. Students learn the world behind the super-market shelves.

The MOST will feature a historical ehibit “Coming Up on the Season: Migrant Farmworkers in the Northeast. Studyguides for this exhibit, at three grade levels with classroom projects on reading photographs, document-basedquestions etc..., can be downloaded at this link: www.farmworkers.cornell.edu/curriculum.htm

The MOST exhibit, "Coming up on the Season: Migrant Farmworkers in the Northeast," runs February 5 - May 30In Spanish and English. Wednesday through Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm, 500 South Franklin Street, Syracuse

Migrant studies on the Web

www.farmworkers.cornell.edu/index.htmThis is the site for the exhibit. Cornell university’s site endeavors to explain

why northeastern growers originally turned to migrant labor and why they do sotoday. It constructs a portrait of the people who come to work seasonally on theNortheast's farms and fields, what motivates their migration and why their lives athome and away from home are like

other resources:

www.farmworkers.cornell.edu/pdf/facts_on_farmworkers.pdfHistory and facts on migrant workers

www.longislandmuseum.org/exhibits/season.aspAn essay about migrant farmers in the Northeast

Migrants’ life in CNYWho are the Joads today — an exhibit



Director Michael Donald Edwards asked actor(Clear and Present Danger, Backdraft and TheInsider) and singer Tim Grimm to write music

for and appear in Syracuse Stage’s production of TheGrapes of Wrath because of Grimm’s passion for rurallife and early Americana music. Following is an excerptof an interview between

TK: What is this story about foryou?

TG: Grapes of Wrath is a storyabout, in a nutshell, trying tomake the world a better place. Itis about hopefulness, a sense ofwhat is right.

TK: How do you see the musicas changing or adding to thestory? What part does it play?

TG: Steinbeck wrote this novelbased on research and observa-tion. To me, the music and thetime period is so eloquently cap-tured ... actually, eloquent is anodd word to use, given the man... but, by Woody Guthrie. At the same time thatSteinbeck was writing this novel Guthrie was living thenovel. He was born and raised in Oklahoma and livedin the panhandle of Texas for a while and wrote all ofthe Dust Bowl ballads, really chronicling history in areal-life way. To me it's really important in this produc-tion to honor what he spoke about all of those yearsago. I'll write some things using my own voice, butwith that sense of hardened character that Woody had.

TK: Guthrie’s work documents economic struggle. Doyou think that this type of music, Guthrie's and yourown Americana genre, still works in the same healingway?

TG: [Laughs] That's a big question. In an ideal world, itwould. I don't know if, in the present environment and

culture it has much of a chance. That's not to saythere's not still hope. In a way it's akin to BruceSpringsteen and his efforts on the campaign trail lastyear, right? In terms of what they're doing thematicallyand what they're trying to do in the country,Springsteen and John Mellencamp are sort-of the rockprinces of what Woody Guthrie was all about.

But, where would Woody be right now in this world ofreality TV and talk show radio and all of this stuff thatclutters our world and clutters our mind? We're living in

a society right now that is now great atlistening and not great at really support-ing live events like theatre and intimatemusic. It's a lot harder.

TK: What do you think is the draw to thistype of story, to the stories of ruralAmerica and its people?

TG: It draws me because these are allpeople that face hard lives; they facechallenges and they're all living suchsimple lives, but they're all seeking direc-tion. In some ways it's very uncomplicat-ed and there's a part of me that is drawnto a simple level in this day and age,which is now very complicated.

TK: What should people know about thisstory before they see the production?

TG: From my perspective, it's important for people toknow that it's still a very relevant story. This is a humanstory and it's historical; this family represents a timeperiod and a place in the western part of our country.But in a lot of ways, things haven't changed. Peoplehave became so insular and really focused on our ownlives so much, and even with all of this vast mediareporting on the rest of the world, we've become pas-sive about parts of this country and people in this coun-try living certain kinds of lives, and certainly people inthe rest of the world living these kinds of lives. This pro-duction will hopefully take the audience out of theirown day-to-day existence and put them in the place ofa group of people struggling to seek out a truth and abetter place. Hopefully it will serve a level of fairness

The Grimm ViewA conversation with composer Tim Grimm

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In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Steinbeck said, “. . . The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrateman’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion andlove.” Debate whether or not the author met his own standards in the writing of The Grapes of Wrath.

At first, Ma Joad feels the “family” is what life is all about and is all that is important. Trace how her viewchanges and analyze what statement Steinbeck is mak-ing through this change.

The Grapes of Wrath is described as among the mostloved and the most hated of books. Discuss what ele-ments you think caused it to be highly praised. Whatelements do you think caused it to be banned andburned in some communities?

Some literary criticism maintains The Grapes of Wrath isan allegory, a story where characters, setting, and eventshave both a literal and symbolic meaning. Explore whatthe Joads’ journey along Route 66 might symbolize.Discuss what different characters like Tom Joad, Ma, JimCasy, or Granma and Granpa might symbolize.

In the first chapter of The Grapes of Wrath, as part of thedescription of the Dust Bowl, Steinbeck writes, “Themen were silent and they did not move often. And thewomen came out of the houses to stand beside theirmen—to feel whether this time the men would break.”Discuss the mood this image evokes. What tone does itset for the novel? How did the creative team turn thiswriting into a live production? What’s more powerful thewords on the page or the theatrical production?

When the book was first published many forgot theJoads were only make-believe. Discuss what you thinkcaused the public to view these fictional people as real.

Credit: Alisa SoderquistThomas Jefferson High Schoolfor Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia

www.discoveryschool.com

Questions for DiscussionIn the classroom

Dorothea Lange, photo



1. Look closely at the opening paragraphs. Steinbeck notes details as well as the wide angle shot. He was influ-enced by film Pare Lorentz's documentaries The Plow that Broke the Plains and The River and his description ofplace is cinematic here. The structure of these paragraphs mirrors the structure of the book, as it moves back andforth from the detailed Joad chapters to the interchapters that cover a wider perspective.

2. The end of this opening chapter focuses on the people on the land, men vs. women. Note the ways that thebook contrasts men's "figuring" to women's methods of coping.

3. Why does Steinbeck first introduce Tom Joad leaving jail? What thematic concerns are thus introduced?

4. The turtle chapter is justly famous. Early reviewers often focused only on the historical accuracy of the novel,whereas Steinbeck insisted that he was not writing merely social history, his vision was also highly suggestive,symbolic, mythic. The book, he said, had four layers readers could take out of the novel what they could, basedon their sensitivity and sophistication as readers. The turtle symbolizes the migrants in several ways. Discuss.

5. The meaning of home is important throughout this book. Discuss what home means initially to Muley, to Tom,to Ma and the other migrants. Does the definition of home shift throughout the novel?

6. Muley and Casy each offers an alternative life to Tom and two ways to respond to crisis. Examine the centralideas and beliefs of each.

7. Why do Granma and Granpa die before the family reaches California? Why does Connie leave?

8. The interchapters serve a number of purposes: stylistic variety, pace changers, historical overview, repositoriesof Steinbeck's social and political ideas. Find examples of each. Note how his prose often echoes the KingJames Bible. Why would Steinbeck have included these echoes?

9. An early and thoughtful essay called "The Philosophical Joads" by Frederic I. Carpenter (1941) ends with thiscomment: "For the first time in history, The Grapes of Wrath brings together and makes real three great skeins ofAmerican thought. It begins with the transcendental oversoul, Emerson's faith in the common man, and hisProtestant self-reliance. To this it joins Whitman's religion of the love of all men and his mass democracy. And itcombines these mystical and poetic ideas with the realistic philosophy of pragmatism and its emphasis on effec-tive action. From this it develops a new kind of Christianity not otherworldly and passive, but earthly andactive." Trace these threads.

10. Consider the implications of the title, taken from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," whose lyrics Steinbeckhad printed in the endpapers of the first edition. ("He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath arestored.") The title also refers to the book of Revelation: "And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, andgathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God" (xiv 19). Comment onreferences to grapes as representing both want and plenty.

11. References to water are equally abundant in this novel. Consider why water is such a powerful referent.

12. Compare the ending of John Ford's film which ends with Ma Joad declaring that "we're the people" toSteinbeck's ending. Why would Ford change the end? Why would he shift the placement of the governmentcamp section?

www2.sjsu.edu/steinbeck/

Questionscontinued

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For further researchWeb quests and Web resources

Study guidesedsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=300

Lesson plans on teaching the Dust Bowl history from the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities. it includes information on the music, novels and photographs of the ear. It says it will introduce students to historythrough photographs, songs and interviews with people who lived through the Dust Bowl. For grades 3-5

www.rockhall.com/programs/plandetail.asp?id=529Fantastic Web site! Includes a lesson plan on Grapes of Wrath and Woody Guthrie’s music. It includes

clips of Guthrie’s music. It writes, “ Studying the music of Woody Guthrie along with John Steinbeck's The Grapesof Wrath will enhance students' understanding of both works and of the historical conditions which producedthem. Students will see how these artists drew inspiration from the common people and how both attempted to usetheir art as agents of social change.” The curriculum has students 1) Recognize thematic parallels between WoodyGuthrie's music and Steinbeck's novel; 2) Develop an appreciation for the novel and music as historical docu-ments; and 3) Explore the idea of the "American spirit."

www.humanities-interactive.org/texas/dustbowl/Web quests for teaching Dust Bowl history. It doesn’t list grade appropriate levels.

school.discovery.com/lessonplans/pdf/grapesofwrath/grapesofwrath.pdfLesson plan for high school students to create a dramatic monologue based on the novel.

Study guides to the novelwww.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/grapeswrath/

Analysis and summaries of the novel.

www.nashville-schools.davidson.k12.tn.us/CyberGuides/grapes/teachertemplate.htmlActually the San Diego school system’s study guide to the novel.

More classroom activitieswww.americanwriters.org/classroom/scrapbook/js_bio.asp

This site asks students to create a John Steinbeck scrapbook based on a biography that is part of the site.

www.nde.state.ne.us/SS/1930.html Web quests on the Dust Bowl and the novel.

Historywww.unccd.int//publicinfo/duststorms/part2-eng.pdf

A government report on The Dust Bowl. Excellent for high school students to use as a primary source forresearch.

www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fachap03.htmlDorothy Lange’s history photos of the Depression and Dust Bowl.

xroads.virginia.edu/This site contains a section on the 1930s presented through the lenses of films, radioprograms, print, and other forms of cultural expression. It requiresShockWave, RealPlayer, and Netscape 3.0 or better for optimal use.



For further researchWeb sites

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www.aflcio.org/aboutaflcio/history/history/links.cfmLinks to lesson plans, resources etc.. for teaching labor history.

/lcweb.loc.gov/History eSearch.comLocated in the American Memory collection, this is an excellent multi-media resource for the lives of those portrayed in The Grapes of Wrath. Many US history/Depression Era links contains primary sources.

www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/resource_guides/content.cfm?tpc=24A general overview of the time of the novel.

www.historic66.com/History of route 66 with maps and a slide show.

www.geocities.com/Nashville/3448/dbball.htmlA fan created this site with information on Guthrie’s songs

title3.sde.state.ok.us/history_and_culture/Color photos of Oklahoma, historic photos, lesson plans and information on the Dust Bowl.

www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/grapesofwrath/A resource on how Steinbeck wrote the novel. Includes a news report, a digital recording of Woody

Guthrie's songs "Tom Joad" and a film clip of The Grapes of Wrath. It also has many links.

Steinbeck biographywww.sjsu.edu/depts/steinbec/srchome.html

This web site offers biographical information and photos of Steinbeck and links researcher toother sites and Steinbeck archives.

www.ipl.org/ref/litcrit/The IPL site contains links to critical and biographical information about Steinbeck which can beaccessed by author's name, book title, or literary time period in America.

www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1985/3/85.03.04.x.html#fIncludes a lesson plan for teaching The Grapes of Wrath

www.mchsmuseum.com/steinbeck.htmlMonterey historical society resources on Steinbeck’s life. An excellent guide for students on a Web quest

about his life.


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Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Eds. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten. New York: Viking Press, 1975. This edited collection includes letters Steinbeck wrote to friends, family, and colleagues. The presentation

in chronological format makes the subject matter clearly autobiographical.

Benson, Jackson J. The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography. New York: Viking P, 1984. "Jackson . . . [with] full access to Steinbeck's papers and photographs[,] . . . interviewed scores of individ-

uals in his decade of research for this book."

Kiernan, Thomas. The Intricate Music: A Biography of John Steinbeck. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.This is a rich source of anecdotal material.

Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. New Brunswick: 1958.There is an abundance of biographical material scattered throughout the first section of this volume.

Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: H. Holt, 1995. "Jay Parini explores Steinbeck's love-hate relationship with Hollywood and Broadway, his career as a war cor-

respondent, his difficult first and second marriages, and his often tempestuous associations with numerous celebri-ties. . ."

Valjean, Nelson. John Steinbeck, The Errant Knight: An Intimate Biography of His California Years. San Francisco:Chronicle Books, 1975.

"Nelson Valjean - - a friend of John Steinbeck, his family and limited circle of intimate friends from the earliestdays in Salinas, California . . . . [writes about] the characters, places and experiences presented . . . in Steinbeck'sbooks and plays; the pony he loved, the hills he roamed, the paisanos he drank with and, of course, Ed Ricketts,the biologist-philosopher of Cannery Row."

CRITICISM: Astro, Richard, and Tetsumaro Hayashi, eds. Steinbeck: The Man and His Work. Proc. of the 1970 SteinbeckConference. Corvallis: OR State U P, 1971.

The book is a collection of articles "originally presented at the 1970 Steinbeck Conference held in Corvallis,Oregon [written by] . . . a diverse group of Steinbeck scholars and personal acquaintances whose essays providethe kind of 'toto-picture' of the novelist no other volume of Steinbeck criticism has ever attempted."

Bloom, Harold, ed. John Steinbeck. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. "Among the distinguished critics and scholars represented in this volume, Howard Levant views The Grapes of

Wrath as a successful epic that yields to flaws in its final quarter. . ."

---. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Broomall, PA : Chelsea House, 1996. "This volume is designed to present biographical, critical, and bibliographical information on John Steinbeck

and The Grapes of Wrath. Following Harold Bloom's introduction, there appears a detailed biography of theauthor, discussing the major events in his life and his important literary works."

Heavilin, Barbara A., ed. The Critical Response to John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Westport, CN:Greenwood P, 2000.

"This collection of critical essays is divided into two parts, “with the first part looking back on the first fiftyyears, 1939-1989 and the second looking forward to a new millennium."

continued

Annotated Bibliography



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Annotated Bibliography continued

Kazan, Alfred. In On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature. New York.Steinbeck’s realism was mindful of the terror and disorganization of the times but not submissive to the

spiritual stupor of the time.

Kennedy, John S. “John Steinbeck: Life Affirmed and Dissolved” In Fifty Years of the American Novel, edited byH.C. Gardiner. New York: Scribner’s, 1951

The judgment one must pass on Steinbeck is this: that he is a sentimentalist.

Lisca, Peter. The Wide World of John Steinbeck. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers U P, 1958. This ". . . chronological treatment of the novels allows [Lisca] both to show the autobiographical connection

between one novel and the next and to illustrate the growth of Steinbeck's ideas and the changes in his style."

Moore, Harry T. The Novels of John Steinbeck: A First Critical Study. Chicago, 1939.An explanation and a commentary is offered rather than abstract criticism.

Rascoe, Burton. “Excuse It, Please,” Newsweek, 1 May 1939, p.38.This article is an attack on the inaccuracies of The Grapes of Wrath.

Richards, Edmund C. “The Challenge of John Steinbeck”. North American Review. 243 (Summer 1937), pp. 406-413.

This article defends Steinbeck against “bloodless moralists” of the genteel tradition.

Shippey, T.A. “East of Camelot,” In The Times Literary Supplement, Times Newspapers Ltd. (London), 1977, April28, 1977, p. 536.

This article criticizes Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Nobel Knights; Shippey says that whenSteinbeck abandons caution he contributes most. The effects are comic in detail, sombre in implications, distinctlyof this century.

Stuckey, W.J. The Pulitzer Prize Novels. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966.This book details the controversy about awarding The Grapes of Wrath the Pulitzer Prize.

Taylor, Walter Fulton. “The Grapes of Wrath Reconsidered”, Mississippi Quarterly 12 (Summer 1959), pp. 136-144.Discusses novel from a conservative Christian view.

Weeks, Donald. “Steinbeck Against Steinbeck,” Pacific Spectator 1 (Autumn 1947), pp. 447-457.This article was critical of Steinbeck’s sentimentality.

Wilson, Edmund. In Classics and Commercials: A Literary Chronicle of the Forties, pp. 35-45. New York: Farrar,Straus, 1950.

Wilson is critical of Steinbeck’s work but recognizes his observation and invention and the color in hiswriting.

Owens, Louis. The Grapes of Wrath: Trouble in the Promised Land. Boston: Twayne, 1989. "Louis Owens's [book] provides a complete context for Steinbeck's masterwork, including detailed descrip-


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-tions of the Joads' real-life counterparts, the thousands of migrant farm workers who poured into California in thethirties; an analysis of Steinbeck's early career and development; and an . . . overview of the critical response tothe novel.

Wyatt, David, ed. New Essays on The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Cambridge U P, 1990. David Wyatt examines the history of the novel's reception. He also analyzes the text from a social realistic

viewpoint, concentrating on California as the lost dream. The other four essays . . . cover issues and themes ofSteinbeck's politics, metaphors of movement and growth, views of women, uses of documentary, and the transfor-mation of the novel into film."

REFERENCE WORKS: Astro, Richard. "John Steinbeck." Dictionary of Literary Biography: Volume 9: American Novelists, 1910-1945: Part3: Mari Sandoz-Stark Young. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984-current. 43-68.

One of the primary Steinbeck critics gives biographical and critical information on the author.

Contemporary Literary Criticism: Criticism of the Works of Today's Novelists, Poets, Playwrights, Short Story Writers,Scriptwriters, and Other Creative Writers. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984-current.

Information is found here by looking up Grapes of Wrath in the Cumulative Title Index, which refers the read-er to literary criticism of the novel included in the over 160 volume print set.

"John Steinbeck." Dictionary of Literary Biography: Documentary Series: An Illustrated Chronicle. Ed. Margaret A.Van Antwerp. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984-current. 2 vols. 279-332.

"John Steinbeck: 1902-1968." American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies. Ed. Leonard Unger. Vol 4.New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974. 4 vols. 49-72.

This extended essay parallels Steinbeck's life with his works.

Quent Carter, Ph.D., Public Services Librarian Solano College Library

“Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe,grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emergesahead of his accomplishments.”

John SteinbeckThe Grapes of Wrath



Notes

Documents

The Grapes of Wrath