The Dust Bowl Migration: Poverty Stories, Race Stories The Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s plays an important and complicated role in the way Americans talk about the history of poverty and public policy in their country. For almost seventy years the story of white families from Oklahoma and neighboring states making their way to California in the midst of the Great Depression has been kept alive by journalists and filmmakers, college teachers and museum curators, songwriters and novelists, and of course historians. Although it was but one episode out of many struggles with poverty during the 1930s, the Dust Bowl migration became something of synecdoche, the single most common image that later generations would use to memorialize the hardships of that decade. The story begins in the summer of 1935. Those states had suffered greatly in the early 1930s, both from escalating joblessness and a severe drought that for several years denied much of the Great Plains sufficient rain to produce its usual complement of wheat and cotton.
Of Mice and Men - Critical Reception | Steinbeck in the Schools | San Jose State University Setting | Character Census | Plot Synopsis | Critical ReceptionCultural References | Key Terms and Concepts Published in 1937, Of Mice and Men is remembered as one of Steinbeck's most important and influential novels. Chronicling a few days in the lonely lives of two migrant workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, Of Mice and Men shows the devastating impact that the Great Depression had on many American's ability to succeed financially. As Megan Chaudet points out in "20th Centrury American Best Sellers," many of the contemporary reviews of Of Mice and Men "were extremely positive and considered the new novel well up to par with [Steinbeck's] previous novels." While overall the reception of Of Mice and Men was overwhelmingly positive, staunch debunker of Steinbeck, Edmund Wilson, criticized the novel for "Steinbeck's preoccupation with biology," which "led him 'to present life in animal terms'" (Meyer).
Of Mice and Men: Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men | Book Summary & Study Guide | CliffsNotes John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men is a parable about what it means to be human. Steinbeck's story of George and Lennie's ambition of owning their own ranch, and the obstacles that stand in the way of that ambition, reveal the nature of dreams, dignity, loneliness, and sacrifice. Ultimately, Lennie, the mentally handicapped giant who makes George's dream of owning his own ranch worthwhile, ironically becomes the greatest obstacle to achieving that dream. Written by: John Steinbeck Type of Work: novel Genres: parable; Great Depression First Published: 1937 Setting: a ranch Main Characters: George Milton; Lennie Small; Candy; Curley; Curley's wife; Slim; Crooks Major Thematic Topics: nature of dreams; barriers; powerlessness; fate; Christian influences; classical influences; natural influences; loss of paradise; my brother's keeper; ephemeral nature of life Motifs: nature; loneliness; animalism versus humanity Major Symbols: characters; locations; animal imagery; George's card game; hands
The Great Depression - Facts & Summary Hoover, a Republican who had formerly served as U.S. secretary of commerce, believed that government should not directly intervene in the economy, and that it did not have the responsibility to create jobs or provide economic relief for its citizens. In 1932, however, with the country mired in the depths of the Great Depression and some 15 million people (more than 20 percent of the U.S. population at the time) unemployed, Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt won an overwhelming victory in the presidential election. By Inauguration Day (March 4, 1933), every U.S. state had ordered all remaining banks to close at the end of the fourth wave of banking panics, and the U.S. Roosevelt took immediate action to address the country’s economic woes, first announcing a four-day “bank holiday” during which all banks would close so that Congress could pass reform legislation and reopen those banks determined to be sound.
15 Things You Might Not Know About 'Of Mice and Men' You probably spent some time as a teenager reading John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men. Even if you know about Lennie and George’s heartbreaking pursuit of life, liberty, and a hutch full of rabbits, there are a few things you might have missed about the iconic story during English class. Although he was a Stanford University graduate and had published five books by the time he wrote Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck had more in common with his itinerant main characters than readers might have expected. In the same New York Times article, Steinbeck recalled a fellow laborer on whom Lennie Small’s arc was based: “Lennie was a real person. The stage intrigued Steinbeck as much as prose did, and the book shares similarities with both media. Around eight months after its initial publication, Of Mice and Men made its way to the stage, opening in New York in November of 1937. Of Mice and Men proves that with such prevalence comes backlash.
Race During the Great Depression - American Memory Timeline- Classroom Presentation The problems of the Great Depression affected virtually every group of Americans. No group was harder hit than African Americans, however. By 1932, approximately half of black Americans were out of work. In some Northern cities, whites called for blacks to be fired from any jobs as long as there were whites out of work. Racial violence again became more common, especially in the South. Lynchings, which had declined to eight in 1932, surged to 28 in 1933. Although most African Americans traditionally voted Republican, the election of President Franklin Roosevelt began to change voting patterns. Still, discrimination occurred in New Deal housing and employment projects, and President Roosevelt, for political reasons, did not back all of the legislation favored by such groups as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
John Steinbeck American writer (1902–1968) John Ernst Steinbeck ( STYNE-bek; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception".[2] He has been called "a giant of American letters."[3][4] Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. Early life Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving without a degree in 1925. Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. Career Writing Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published in 1929, is loosely based on the life and death of privateer Henry Morgan. Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck produced three shorter works. Ed Ricketts In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing.
Of Mice and Men: Key Facts full title · Of Mice and Men author · John Steinbeck type of work · Novella genre · Fiction; tragedy language · English time and place written · Mid-1930s; Pacific Grove and Los Gatos ranch, California date of first publication · 1937 publisher · Covici, Friede, Inc. narrator · Third-person omniscient climax · Lennie accidentally kills Curley’s wife in the barn protagonists · George and Lennie antagonists · Curley; society; the cruel, predatory nature of human life setting (time) · 1930s setting (place) · South of Soledad, California point of view · The story is told from the point of view of a third-person omniscient narrator, who can access the point of view of any character as required by the narrative. falling action · Lennie runs away from the barn; the men return and find Curley’s wife dead; Curley leads a mob of men to search for and kill Lennie; George finds Lennie in the clearing and, while retelling the story of life on their farm, shoots him in the back of the head.
Of Mice and Men: Context John Steinbeck was born in 1902 in Salinas, California, a region that became the setting for much of his fiction, including Of Mice and Men. As a teenager, he spent his summers working as a hired hand on neighboring ranches, where his experiences of rural California and its people impressed him deeply. In 1919, he enrolled at Stanford University, where he studied intermittently for the next six years before finally leaving without having earned a degree. For the next five years, he worked as a reporter and then as caretaker for a Lake Tahoe estate while he completed his first novel, an adventure story called Cup of Gold, which was published in 1929. In his acceptance speech for the 1962 Nobel Prize in literature, Steinbeck said: . . . the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. Critical opinions of Steinbeck’s work have always been mixed.
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