Author: Of Mice and Men

 Spanned both World Wars, the Korean
War, and the Vietnam War
 What impacts might these have had on his writing?
 What other “big deal” events did he live through?

 1940 Pulitzer for Grapes of Wrath
(Steinbeck’s most famous novel)
 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature

 Exposing our many grievous faults and failures, for dredging up to light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.
 His unique insight into the “common man”
 Migrant workers
 Showcased their daily struggles and ever present dignity.

 Led to suspicion of communism (J.
Edgar Hoover = FBI Director)
 Enemies of the U.S. (Russians and Nazis) distributed Steinbeck’s work as “Anit-
America Propaganda” and also criticized him for falsely portraying their own countries.
 FBI releases pages and pages of info on
Steinbeck, but denied investigating him.

 Painting vivid portraits of the landscape.
 Demonstrating how people are shaped and manipulated by their environments.
 Reflecting his belief in the need for social justice.
 Reflecting his hope that people can learn from the suffering of others.

 End Steinbeck’s life
 Begin historical setting.

 When was the Great Depression?
 What do you know about the 1920’s?
 What do you know about the 1930’s?
 What kind of impact does this transition from the 20’s to the 30’s create?

 Unemployment jumped from less than 3 million in 1929 to 4 million in 1930, 8 million in 1931, and 12 1/2 million in
1932.
 In 1932, a quarter of the nation's families did not have a single employed wage earner.

 Even those fortunate enough to have jobs suffered drastic pay cuts and reductions in hours.
 By 1933 average family income had tumbled 40 percent, from $2,300 in 1929 to just $1,500 four years later.

 In the Pennsylvania coal fields, three or four families crowded together in oneroom shacks and lived on wild weeds. In
Arkansas, families were found inhabiting caves. In Oakland, California, whole families lived in sewer pipes.

 Vagrancy shot up as many families were evicted from their homes for nonpayment of rent.
 To save money, families neglected medical and dental care. Many families sought to cope by planting gardens, canning food, buying used bread, and using cardboard and cotton for shoe soles.

 The Depression had a powerful impact on family life.
 It forced couples to delay marriage and drove the birthrate below the replacement level for the first time in American history.
 The divorce rate fell, for the simple reason that many couples could not afford to maintain separate households or pay legal fees.

 The rate of desertion soared.
 By 1940, 1.5 million married women were living apart from their husbands.
 More than 200,000 vagrant children wandered the country as a result of the breakup of their families.

 This is one of Dorothea Lange’s most famous photographs - a destitute mother in a migrant farm worker camp in California.
Lange was one of the many talented WPA photographers who recorded the history and conditions of the Depression across the United States.
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
This was the 6 th in a series of this woman & became one of
Lange’s most famous photos.
It was later featured on a postage stamp.