Life and Literature

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Steinbeck

• Life and Literature

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I. The Great Depression

• Causes

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A. Overextension of credit

• Greed and rampant prosperity of the 1920s led to
  much speculation -- (borrowing capital in hopes
  of gaining enough return to far exceed principal
  and interest.)

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B. Overproduction

• used to make up for low prices
• exhausted the soil (no chemical fertilizers,
  little irrigation, no crop rotation)

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C. The Dust Bowl

• Major floods and winds in the early 1930s blew
  away the soil in North Texas and Oklahoma

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A dust storm
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Tenant system -- tenants lost their farms,
came to California (conspiracy to bring cheap
labor West)

• (people who were already poor)

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A tenant family
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II. California Agriculture
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A. Based on piece system

• Certain amount paid for each box picked
• Piece price very low

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III. Steinbeck the man
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A. Born in Salinas, CA.

• Raised with farm workers

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B. Went to Stanford

• Worked many jobs
• fruitpicker
• ranch hand
• estate caretaker

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C. 1936 -- San Francisco Newspaper asked
him to write about life in migrant camps
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From this experience, he wrote two books
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D. He wrote about what he knew

• farm strikes
• need for labor unions
• need for government aid for poor workers

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E. The Grapes of Wrath won Nobel Prize

• helped the success of agricultural unions

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F. Steinbeck and Socialism

• Steinbeck was socialist, especially in younger
  years
• Socialism common during depression
• 1932 election -- 10 voted Socialist
• Steinbecks work reflects this Socialism
• poor workers exploited by rich landowners
• the unfairness of life