(We had to gather all of our basic research information into one document to show that we did it. That's what this is [it had to be a part of the assignment]. All of the information is copied and pasted from the website above it.)
Steinbeck Research Project
With a Partner, research and gather info on: (you’ll do your own project, but can share researching duties)
Topic 1: the Life of John Steinbeck (focus on life in Salinas Valley, CA and anything that connects his life to his novels)
http://www.biography.com/articles/Steinbeck-John-9493358
(born Feb. 27, 1902, Salinas, Calif., U.S.—died Dec. 20, 1968, New York, N.Y.) American novelist, best known for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which summed up the bitterness of the Great Depression decade and aroused widespread sympathy for the plight of migratory farmworkers. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962.
Steinbeck attended Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., intermittently between 1920 and 1926 but did not take a degree. Before his books attained success, he spent considerable time supporting himself as a manual labourer while writing, and his experiences lent authenticity to his depictions of the lives of the workers in his stories. He spent much of his life in Monterey county, Calif., which later was the setting of some of his fiction.
http://cryptopatents.org/john-steinbeck-biography-pictures
John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968 of heart disease and congestive heart failure. He was 66, and had been a life-long smoker. An autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/steinbeck-bio.html
John Steinbeck (1902-1968), born in Salinas, California, came from a family of moderate means. He worked his way through college at Stanford University but never graduated. In 1925 he went to New York, where he tried for a few years to establish himself as a free-lance writer, but he failed and returned to California.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/life-of-john-steinbeck-a-biography.html
John Steinbeck’s first novel was titled ‘Cup of Gold’ and was published in 1929. In 1935 he published ‘Tortilla Flat’ which received critical acclaim and won the California Commonwealth Club’s Gold Medal.
In 1952, following the divorce of his second wife, Gwyndolyn Conger, and the tragic demise of his best friend Ed Ricketts, he wrote ‘East of Eden’.
In 1962, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his "realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception".
In 1964 he won the United States Medal for Freedom at the hands of President Johnson.
http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/The-Life-and-Times-of-John-Steinbeck/1
1919–25: Graduates from Salinas High School. Attends classes at Stanford University over the course of six years, leaves without taking a degree. During this period, Steinbeck drops out for months at a time and is employed as a sales clerk, farm laborer, rancher and factory worker.
1925: Moves to New York City; working odd jobs to support himself while writing. Meets with a great deal of rejection or indifference to his work. Returns to California after he is unsuccessful getting any of his writing published.
1929: Publishes his first novel, a swashbuckler titled Cup of Gold, to a weak reception.
Topic 2: The Great Depression: cause/ result--focus more on life during Depression
http://www.allabouthistory.org/life-during-the-great-depression.htm
My father, Bill, recalls being startled by loud cheering in the school nearby. It was the end of World War I and he was 3 years old. As a typical teenage boy, Bill focused on food and cars. “Street cars and Model T Fords appeared in the late 1920s. A lot of foods were becoming packaged and chicken houses were disappearing from backyards. Food was still very cheap. A loaf of bread cost 10¢. Then came the steamer and high-powered luxury cars (Pikes Peak Motor with high-gear capacity).” Dad’s family was middle class, but the Depression affected everyone. “Food and jobs were hard to get and many people stood in lines for government hand-outs. A lot of people lived on powdered milk, dried beans, and potatoes.”In Chicago, a crowd of men fought over a barrel of garbage -- food scraps for their families.
The harsh reality of life during the Great Depression is vividly recalled by Travis (12 yrs) who found his father behind their Massachusetts house, crying and heartbroken. “My dad was the strongest man I knew, but the Depression brought him to his knees.”
While starving children in the Appalachians chewed on their hands, nearly drawing blood, nursery school children in Philadelphia played an “eviction game.” Toy furniture would be piled up in one corner of the room, then picked up and moved to another corner. “We ain’t got no money for rent, so we move. Then we get the sheriff on us, so we move again.”
http://www.museum.siu.edu/museum_classroom_grant/Museum_Explorers/school_pages/bourbonnais/page4
.htm
Life in rural areas during the Depression was hard. Because prices for crops were very low, farmers received little for their efforts. They could not repay the loans that they had taken out on their farms in more prosperous times, and many lost their houses and farms.
As the hard times deepened, the Red Cross and the government set up stations to dispense food and other necessities to the needy. Out in the country, there were not as many food stations, so people had to travel long distances to town to receive supplies. This trip was a hardship because few had transportation or the money to make the trip.
People did not have money to buy things like dishes, so companies gave away "depression glass" with their products.
This iron, though easier to use than the old, heavy iron that had to be heated on a stove, was difficult to prepare and time consuming to use. Women had to fill the tank with gasoline, (which could be very dangerous) pump air through it, and generate the burner. Yet, it did work better than the old iron.
http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade30.html
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 a loaf; Round Steak, 42 cents a pound
Lynchings: 21
Topic 3: Migrant Farmers Depression era (concluding paragraphs on Modern Migrant farming)
http://museumca.org/picturethis/3_2.html
"Shelters were made of almost every conceivable thing - burlap, canvas, palm branches." - A California minister's report of a labor camp in the Imperial Valley
Mexican and Mexican American migrant farm workers expected conditions like those pictured above as they sought farm work in California and other states in the early 1900s. At that time, the Mexican Revolution and the series of Mexican civil wars that followed pushed many Mexicans to flee to the United States. Many U.S. farm owners recruited Mexicans and Mexican Americans because they believed that these desperate workers would tolerate living conditions that workers of other races would not.
http://international.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html
Many independent farmers lost their farms when banks came to collect on their notes, while tenant farmers were turned out when economic pressure was brought to bear on large landholders. The attempts of these displaced agricultural workers to find other work were met with frustration due to a 30 percent unemployment rate.
Driven by the Great Depression, drought, and dust storms, thousands of farmers packed up their families and made the difficult journey to California where they hoped to find work.
One reason was that the state's mild climate allowed for a long growing season and a diversity of crops with staggered planting and harvesting cycles. For people whose lives had revolved around farming, this seemed like an ideal place to look for work.
Although the weather was comparatively balmy and farmers' fields were bountiful with produce, Californians also felt the effects of the Depression. Local and state infrastructures were already overburdened, and the steady stream of newly arriving migrants was more than the system could bear. After struggling to make it to California, many found themselves turned away at its borders. Those who did cross over into California found that the available labor pool was vastly disproportionate to the number of job openings that could be filled.
Even with an entire family working, migrants could not support themselves on these low wages. Many set up camps along irrigation ditches in the farmers' fields. These "ditchbank" camps fostered poor sanitary conditions and created a public health problem.
In an attempt to maintain a steady income, workers had to follow the harvest around the state. When potatoes were ready to be picked, the migrants needed to be where the potatoes were.
The Arvin Migratory Labor Camp was the first federally operated camp opened by the FSA in 1937 and the starting point of the Todd/Sonkin expedition. The camps were intended to resolve poor sanitation and public health problems, as well as to mitigate the burden placed on state and local infrastructures.
Although each camp had a small staff of administrators, much of the responsibility for daily operations and governance devolved to the campers themselves. Civil activities were carried out through camp councils and camp courts.
As World War II wore on, the state of the economy, both in California and across the nation, improved dramatically as the defense industry geared up to meet the needs of the war effort. Many of the migrants went off to fight in the war. Those who were left behind took advantage of the job opportunities that had become available in West Coast shipyards and defense plants. As a result of this more stable lifestyle, numerous Dust Bowl refugees put down new roots in California soil, where their descendants reside to this day.
INFLUENCE OF SALINAS VALLEY
http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/John-Steinbecks-East-of-Eden-Salinas-Valley-California
"I want to describe the Salinas Valley in detail but in sparse detail so that there can be a real feeling of it. It should be sights and sounds, smells and colors but put down with simplicity as though the boys [his sons] were able to read it. This is the physical background of the book." — John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (par. 1)
Steinbeck called East of Eden "a sort of autobiography of the Salinas Valley." Early in the writing process, he considered both "My Valley" and "The Salinas Valley" as possible titles for his novel. For, as he wrote in Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters, his book would be "the story of my country and the story of me." (par. 3)
