The 75th anniversary of Steinbeck's masterpiece of journalism

Gathered in this important volume are seven newspaper articles on migrant farm workers that John Steinbeck wrote for The San Francisco News in 1936, three years before The Grapes of Wrath. With the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter and the emotional power of a novelist in his prime, Steinbeck toured the squatters' camps and Hoovervilles of California.

The Harvest Gypsies gives us an eyewitness account of the horrendous Dust Bowl migration, a major event in California history, and provides the factual foundation for Steinbeck's masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath. Included are twenty-two photographs by Dorothea Lange and others, many of which accompanied Steinbeck's original articles.

Published in Collaboration with the California Council for the Humanities, introduction by Charles Wollenberg

From Publishers Weekly

In 1936, a San Francisco newspaper commissioned Steinbeck to write a week-long series of articles about California's underclass of white migrant farm workers, who became the models and the inspiration for The Grapes of Wrath. Reprinted here, Steinbeck's observations of migrant families and of their exploitation by wealthy agriculturists have not lost their potency. And as Wollenberg, a history professor at Vista College, Berkeley, Calif., points out, the plight of the newly destitute and newly homeless has particular relevance today. Steinbeck's journalism shares the enduring quality of his famous novel (but critics of Steinbeck will beware; his heavy-handed style is only slightly less obtrusive here). Especially interesting are the final articles, which analyze the history of California's migrant populations and propose federal programs to alleviate their distress. Steinbeck's outrage leads to an emotional indictment of then-current farm management as "a system of terrorism that would be unusual in the Fascist nations of the world." Certain to engage students of both American literature and labor history. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

''Steinbeck's journalism shares the enduring quality of his famous novel.''--Publishers Weekly

''The book is a valuable, largely unknown treasure that I heartily recommend.''--FACCCTS

''Steinbeck's potent blend of empathy and moral outrage was perfectly matched by the photographs of Dorothea Lange, who had caught the whole saga with her camera--the tents, the jalopies, the bindlestiffs, the pathos and courage of uprooted mothers and children.'' --San Francisco Review of Books