Grapes of Wrath Resources Page

Use the use the links listed and annotated here to: a) explore the world of the Dust Bowl migrants, b) deepen your understanding of Steinbeck's novel, and c) gather background information for the role play.

Overview of Dust Bowl Migration to California A good place for students to start. After a quick review of this page, select other resources from the list below.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/peopleevents/pandeAMEX08.html

The American Memory Collections in the Library of Congress

• From the Great Depression to WWII: Photographs of the Farm Security Administration A large and rich collection of photographs, including classics by Dorothea Lange and others. Click here http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fadocamer.html to start with a small set of selected images created by Lange ("Migrant Workers") and Arthur Rothstein ("FSA Migratory Labor Camp")

• (If you want to do more extended research in the FSA archive, go to the home page of the FSA collection, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html, where you have access to more than 16,000 photos. Tips: To find the appropriate images in the archive, go to "Black and White Photos," and then to the Geographic Index. Then, pick an area of California and examine the available photos. OR, use the internal search engine to search for key words in the photo titles, such as "migrant.")
• John Steinbeck Page from the U. of Missouri.
  http://ocean.otr.usm.edu/~wsimkins/steinb.html. An interesting if quirky collection of resources, including some Steinbeck essays and letters, a set of reviews and critical essays, and links to other Steinbeck sites. (TIP: I found the "Secondary Sources" to be the best part of the site-especially Critical Essays. See what you think.)

• Voices of the Dust Bowl A huge collection of images, songs, and audio recordings of oral testimony. For introductory background, go to http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tsme.html.

Follow the links to the names below, which will take you to recorded audio testimony (we recommend that you click on Real Audio):
J.W. Becker	Wayne Dinwiddie	Tom Johnson	A. Martinez	Roy Turner
Flora Robertson	Jose Flores	Millie Delp	Mr. Nichols	L.D. Westfall
Tom Collins	Viola Hayes	Rev. Marley	Mr. Saylor

For more extended research, go to the collection home page, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html. There you can browse or search by keyword.

Supplemental Web resources:
* The Grapes of Wrath. http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Steinbeck/grapes.html. Chapter by chapter summary, for those who want a brief refresher.
* The New Deal Network http://newdeal.feri.org/. A collection of sources on all aspects of the New Deal. To find useful resources for this activity, including newspaper articles and Congressional testimony, go to the "Document Library, and then "Search by Subject." (TIP: The search is a key word index of categories you can click on. Some categories to try: Agricultural Labor, California, Migrant Labor, or Oklahoma.)
* Surviving the Dust Bowl. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/dustbowl/. A site based on the PBS documentary.

Developed by Bret Eynon