My Account Wish List
Advanced Search
Print - Close Window
www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR0575.aspx
All Greenwood Products
Understanding The Grapes of Wrath A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents
(Click to Enlarge)
Claudia Durst Johnson
Book Code: GR0575
ISBN: 0-313-30575-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-30575-7
296 pages, photos, tables, chronology
Greenwood Press
Publication: 11/30/1999
List Price: $51.95 (UK Sterling Price: £29.95)
Availability: Print on demand
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Secondary or college teachers and students will find this companion volume useful for building contexual information and making connections between Steinbeck's novel and actual writings of the time period in which the story takes place.
    —Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
Description: When The Grapes of Wrath was published in 1939, it had an explosive effect on the public, calling attention to the problems of migrant farm workers during the Great Depression. This casebook provides a rich source of primary materials on the period and the plight of the migrant farm worker that brings to life the problems Steinbeck immortalized in the novel. Included are interviews with eyewitnesses to the Dust Bowl, firsthand accounts and investigative reports of the causes and effects of the Great Depression, letters to Eleanor Roosevelt and Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, diaries and autobiographies of migrant farm workers in the 1930s, newspaper articles and editorials of the period, congressional testimony, a Wobbly song, affidavits by union activists, and other unique materials, many of which have never before appeared in print. All these materials can be used in literature, American history, and interdisciplinary classes to enrich the study of this novel and its times. Following a literary analysis of the novel, six chapters present primary documents on the following topics related to the novel: the financial causes and results of the Great Depression; the history of farming in the early twentieth century and the growth of agribusiness in California; working and living conditions of migrant farm workers in 1930s California; attempts to unionize farm workers and major strikes of the period; lawlessness among law enforcement officers in dealing with union members; the legacy of the 1930s--Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, and working and living conditions of farm workers long after the publication of the novel. Each chapter is followed by study questions, topics for research papers and class discussion, and suggestions of further reading.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction
  • Suffering and Sacrifice: A Literary Analysis of The Grapes of Wrath
  • Money and the Great Depression
  • Farming in the Great Depression
  • Migrant Farm Workers
  • Unions in the Fields
  • Law and Lawlessness in the Joad's World
  • After The Grapes of Wrath: The Work of Cesar Chavez and Farm Workers at the Close of the Twentieth Century
  • Index
LC Card Number: 99-17854
LCC Class: PS3537
Dewey Class: 813
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571