The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Moderator---Dee Dee

At the end of the Dustbowl, displaced farmers headed west to seek work in California.  This is the story on one such family, the Joads from Oklahoma.  The Bank foreclosed on their property and they were put off the land.  Handouts about the opportunity California offered prompted them to load up the family and head West on Route 66.  Death, hunger, and broken dreams became their journey.  Stopovers in migrant camps like Hooverville opened their eyes to the widening chasm between the workers and the growers.  The novel is also filled with chapters foreshadowing the Joads' journey with history and a real feel for the times.   

This 75 year old classic won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1940, was made into a movie, and appears on some best 100 novels list like Time Magazine, Daily Telegraph and Modern Library. Its reference to Route 66 as 'mother road' to California turned it into a cultural icon. Weedpatch Camp from the story is still in use today. The book title came from part of a line in the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  

(From our banned book series)

The book has a secure place on the American Library Association list of Banned and Challenged Classics. Shortly after being published, Kern County, California's Associated Farmers went after it, getting it banned from their schools and libraries. The group was an avid opponent to organized labor and went so far as to burn the book. Claims against the novel included vulgar language, sexual references, obscenity etc. Public libraries in Kansas City were ordered to remove the book in 1939. It was burned by the East St. Louis Public Library and barred from the Buffalo, N.Y. library. It was banned in Ireland in 1953 and briefly banned in the Soviet Union by Stalin because it portrayed even the most destitute Americans as owning cars. Turkish publishers went on trial for publishing it in 1973. It was banned in Iowa in 1980 and in Morris, Manitoba in 1982. It has been challenged in schools in both North and South Carolina in recent years along with other parts of the country. 

Food:

Ma Joad's pork sandwiches,

Truck Stop apple pie ala mode

and grapes

Bans/Challenges???

"Story highlights the abuse suffered by the

migrants via the farmers in California.  Banning was purely political.

No ban should have ever taken place for book."---Dee Dee

"Not banned but not suitable for under high school age."---Kim