When John Ernst Steinbeck was a young man emerging from college, farming was

a major business in California. Many men traveled around the state, going from job

to job, carrying with them only a small bundle of belongings.

Working many long hours at low wages, these "bindle stiffs" as they were called,

made just enough money to feed themselves, but never enough for them to start a

family and settle down. This was Steinbeck's first experience with what he would

see again many times in the future: inequality. On that day, he began to gather the

information he would use for his later composition, offering money for any story

these hoboes had that Steinbeck wished to use in his writing.

While he was busy writing his first book, Cup of Gold, America was planting

the seeds of what would become the Great Depression. Luckily he was greatly

unaffected by the economic downfall. He moved into his parents' summer home,

using a fireplace for heat and eating what his garden produced, along with the sea

life he caught in the nearby Pacific. However, he was bothered with electricity bills

that he was to poor to pay.

During the early years of the Depression, Steinbeck spent his time writing,

tending his garden, and most importantly, with the diverse people who worked on

Cannery Row. There he heard more stories of the lives of the migrant workers that

filled many of his future books. In 1934, he spoke to two strike leaders who were in

hiding. They told him of their lives in the camps, what led them to strike, and of the

double standards that the Associated Farmers imposed on them. Steinbeck went to

these camps and talked to these people, this time taking careful notes about the

way they talked, with their profanities, bad grammar, and constant spitting. He

pulled this and previous information together to write his first book on these people,

In Dubious Battle, in 1935.

When people began arriving from the southwest, Steinbeck disguised himself

as a migrant and drove into a government camp called Weedpatch. At the front

office he met the manager, a short man in white clothes named Tom Collins. The

camp was self-governed with different committees having different jobs. Steinbeck

observed many conversations and actions in the camp. There was a conversation

between two women about how to conserve toilet paper. One woman suggested a

bell that rings when a sheet is being taken. He also traveled to a squatters' camp to

get an idea of what it was like. He saw starvation, disease, and death. These

visions haunted him for years to come.

He wrote a book about what he had seen, but he was dissatisfied with it and

destroyed the manuscript before it could be read. He wanted to start the book fresh,

and he decided to learn more before he began again.

For a few weeks in the fall of 1937, he moved into a squatters' camp and

worked beside them in the fields. He kept his identity secret, knowing that the

Associated Farmers would harm him if they knew he was about expose their tactics.

He returned again for ten days when the region was flooded with heavy rains in

February 1938. This time he was there to aid the migrants. He helped them move

to higher ground, get food, and care for their sick.

When he returned to his home he began to write his story. He worked at it at

a steady pace for months with his wife editing and typing it out as he went. He felt

this was to be his best work, a truly American book, as he called it. When his

manuscript was complete in December 1938, he called the book The Grapes of

Wrath, a title his wife suggested. The book was published in 1939, and, as he had

hoped, it turned out to be his best ever. Today the book is a widely read classic.