The Grapes of Wrath
Webquest

Introduction

In the 1930's the Midwestern states suffered an incredible drought. This area became known as the Dust Bowl. Many families were forced to stop farming their land or they lost their land and were forced to move to other places with the promise of work. One such migrant family, the Joads, was fictionalized by John Steinbeck in his novel The Grapes of Wrath. For your next project you will enter this era and relive the trials and tribulations of those who lived through this time. Your group will assume roles that played a part in this tragic story. Your findings will be presented to the entire class in a Power Point presentation.

Become a person in The Grapes of Wrath or one who influences the events in this novel. Your team has been assigned two of these roles. Each person will have a different perspective of the events. Choose a topic that is appropriate for your role. Weave events from the novel/film in your presentation.

1. The Historian-chronicle the events, gather and weave human interest stories based on actual history.
2. One of the Joads (these will be specified) ­Document at least two experiences as they pertain to you and record them in a journal.
3. Government Official-Interact with the migrants and landowners while carrying out government policy, design a campaign to influence migrants and or landowners.
4. Scholar-discuss the background of the novel and the influences on Steinbeck's life that caused him to write this story.
5. The Migrant mother, father, or child. (Specify who you are.)-tell everyone what your life is like now that you have been uprooted and seemingly have been exploited.
6. The Songwriter-chronicle the events, gather and weave human interest stories based on actual history into a song that reflects the novel's experience. Make sure that these songs are ones that a migrant family might have heard or sung. Be prepared to perform some of these songs yourself.
7. Photo-Journalist-report the events in Oklahoma and California for your newspaper/magazine/book during this era.
8. John Steinbeck-report where and how you gathered information for the writing of the book.


Divide into groups of four.
In your group, choose two of these roles.

Follow the links under each role to get information about the characteristics and responsibilities of each one.
Read the contents that refer to your role. Follow the instructions and steps indicated.

Assign group tasks.

Conduct an internet search for your role using the Resources provided.

The Grapes of Wrath Characters
From Sparknotes

Tom Joad The novel's main character and second Joad son. As the novel opens, he is returning to his family after his parole from the McAlester State Penitentiary. Among the novel's characters, Tom shows the most growth in his realization of the concept of human unity and love.
Jim Casy A former preacher. Concerned with his controversial beliefs about what is sinful and what is holy, he has renounced his calling. Traveling to California with the Joads, he plans to listen to the people and help them. Casy is the spokesman for the author's main theories, including the multi-faceted themes of love and strength in unity.
Ma Joad Wife and mother. Ma is the backbone of the Joad family: strong-minded and resolute. Her main concern is that the family unit not be broken. She is the physical embodiment of Steinbeck's theory of love.
Pa Joad Patriarch of the Joad clan. Pa is a sharecropper whose land has just been foreclosed on by the bank. Somewhat lost and weakened, he leads his family to California in search of work.
Rose of Sharon Eldest Joad daughter. Rose of Sharon is pregnant and married to 19-year-old Connie Rivers. Self-absorbed by her pregnancy, she has many plans and dreams for their life in California. At the novel's close, she represents life-giving force.
Granma and Granpa The couple who first began farming on the land that Pa has lost.
Al Joad Sixteen-year-old Joad son. Al willingly admits that only cars and girls interest him. He is responsible for the maintenance of the family's truck during the journey to California.
Muley Graves A Joad neighbor in Oklahoma. Muley has also been tractored off his land. He chooses to stay behind when his family leaves for California, an illustration of the effect of loss on those who have been driven from their land.
Ivy and Sarah (Sairy) Wilson Traveling companions of the Joads. A couple from Kansas, the Wilsons meet the Joads when their touring car breaks down. After Al and Tom fix their car, they travel with the family to the California border. The cooperation between the Wilsons and the Joads exemplifies the strength that is found in persons helping others.
Mr. and Mrs. Wainwright The Wainwrights share a boxcar with the Joads at the end of the novel. Like the Wilsons, their union with the Joads underscores the novel's theme of human unity.
Agnes Wainwright The Wainwright's 16-year-old daughter. She is engaged to Al Joad at the end of the novel.
Ezra Huston Chairman of the central committee in the government camp at Weedpatch.
Willie Eaton Texan in charge of the entertainment committee at the government camp. He and his committee members thwart a staged riot attempt by the Farmers Association.

Historical People of Interest:

Woody Guthrie was the most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century. Coming out of Oklahoma, Guthrie had firsthand knowledge of the Dust Bowl, chronicled in John Steinbeck's novel -The Grapes of Wrath. In fact, Guthrie wrote his own version of the story in a song called "Tom Joad." By the time he gained recognition in the '40s, Guthrie had written hundreds of songs, many of which remain folk standards to this day. When he was interviewed by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in March 1940, Guthrie punctuated his reminiscences by singing "So Long, It's Been Good to Know You," "Dust Bowl Blues," "Do-Re-Mi," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "I Ain't Got No Home," and other songs. He later wrote "Pastures of Plenty," "The Grand Coulee Dam," and his masterpiece, "This Land Is Your Land." He was also an author (Bound for Glory) and a newspaper columnist.

DOROTHEA LANGE (1895-1965) Photo-Journalist
In 1912 she opens a photographic studio in San Francisco. She begins working as a portrait photographer, interested in the psychological aspect of her subjects but still working within the context of the pictorial style of the period. However, the American Depression in the early 30's is to drastically change her approach to photography.
Hired by the Farm Securities Administration, funded by the US Congress she begins a exploration of the vast movement of migratory workers to the West. This experience is to mark her forever. The portraits she produces during this period reveal a deep understanding, compassion and sensitivity towards her fellow man. Her most famous work, Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California symbolizes a triumph of the human spirit in times of difficulty.
Dorothea Lange's photography was to inspire Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" which in turn inspired John Ford's film adaptation.

John Steinbeck:
"John Steinbeck performed a rare feat for a writer of fiction. He created a literary portrait that defined an era. His account of the "Okie Exodus" in The Grapes of Wrath became the principal story through which America defined the experience of the Great Depression. Even today, one of the enduring images for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the 1930s is that of Steinbeck's fictional characters the Joads, an American farming family uprooted from its home by the twin disasters of dust storms and financial crisis to become refugees in a hostile world. Not since Dickens's portrayal of the slums of Victorian England has a novelist produced such an enduring definition of his age."
--from "Steinbeck's Myth of the Okies," by Keith Windschuttle

Resources

Background Information   Great Depression Links to the Great Depression Dust Bowl Timeline 1929-1941 Railroads Black Blizzard Life in the 1930s- Dust Bowl: People and Events-- Dust Bowl Guide and Reference-- Welfare Dust Bowl" Website-- Surviving the Dustbowl-- Drought is hell-website-- Subsidy Failure Challenges Traditional Notions of Farming- The American Experience: Surviving the Dustbowl-- Labor History in the United States: Historical Text Archives: Historical Census Browser of the United States: Women in American History: World Historical Documents: History of the Americas Index: History of the U.S. Working Class: Labor Organizers ­Migrant Workers Depression Labor Union Page-- a timetable of the labor strikes Steinbeck Meets with Strike Organizers Migrant Workers   Migrant Worker Narratives Migrant Labor Camp Pictures Wind Erosion Movie Clips Historic Route 66 Map and History Weedpatch Camp Life at Weedpatch Images Walter W. Stiern Library Farm Security Administration Achives Weedpatch: The Federal Government Role in these Camps Weedpatch Camp: Personal reminiscence The Migrant Experience-- Migrant Experience Mother Migrant   Government Officials Government Policy Migrant Camp-various newspaper archives Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Compensation from before WWI and the Great Depression: from U.S. Department of Labor The New Deal Network Social Security History Singers   Songs of the Dustbowl Skip to My Lou: audio file-- Memory Page-archives of American Songs   Woody Guthrie: Timeline of Woody Guthrie Woody Sez: A collection of articles written by Woody for the People's World Woody Gutherie's writings reviewed and quoted Woody Guthrie Foundation: Woody Guthrie Songs: Woody Guthrie: from The American Taking Dust Bowl Blues I Ain't Got No Home (in this world anymore) Highway 66 Blues Deportee: Pastures of Plenty Pretty Boy Floyd Tom Joad   Audio Poem: Hard Luck Okie, by Roy Turner     Art in the Great Depression  "On May 6, 1935, the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) was created to help provide economic relief to the citizens of the United States who were suffering through the Great Depression. The artistic community had already become inspired during the 1920s and '30s by the inspired creations of Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueriros. Certain visionary U.S. politicians decided to combine the creativity of the new art movements with the values of the American people" New Deal for the Arts Picturing the Century: The Great Depression and the New Deal New Deal Art in the Great Depression  New Deal Cultural Programs The WPA and the Artist's Project The WPA and The Federal Arts' Project WPA Artists Posters from the WPA New Deal Artists Biographies Diego Rivera: PBS American Masters Diego Rivera and the New Deal Jackson Pollock, the WPA, and Thomas Hart Benton Jackson Pollock at Wikipedia Stuart Davis on Artnet--chronology Stuart Davis and the WPA Voices of the Dustbowl   Great Depression Narratives "I Remember: Reminiscences of the Great Depression American Life Histories Voices of the Dustbowl California Legacy Project-Audio Files Say It Plain: A Century of Great American Speeches This rich site includes a audio files and texts of speeches by Booker T. Washington, Dick Gregory, and Stokeley Carmichael. The site includes the only known recordings of Marcus Garvey as well as Barbara Jordan's defense of the US Constitution during the impeachment hearings of President Richard Nixon. Dorothea Lange: her own words   Photo-Journalism Photo-Journalism--Wikipedia America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black and White Photographs from FSA-OWI 1935-145 Photos -- ARTCyclopedia Dorothea Lange's Online Collection-- Dustbowl Photographs American Photography: A Century of Images Walker Evans   Walker Evans Revolutionizes Documentary Photography   Walker Evans Masters of Photography Other Photographers of the FSA Walker Evans: Before and After--Getty Museum   Dorothea Lange: Web Collections Oakland Museum: Online Archive of California-- Dorothea Lange: Migrant Worker Photos-- Dorothea Lange: Getty Museum-- Dorothea Lange: Library of Congress-- Dorothea Lange Migrant Workers Social Documentary Photography  Reading The Grapes of Wrath   The Grapes of Wrath Links Perspectives in American Literature: Steinbeck Vocabulary for The Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 5 Grapes of Wrath: Places Mentioned in Chapter 12 Grapes of Wrath: Chapter 12 (portion) Another Chapter 12: 66 The Mother of All Roads Grapes Chapter 14 (short Excerpt) Grapes of Wrath chapters 21-22 Grapes of Wrath Study Guide Grapes of Wrath: Characters and Summaries The Grapes of Wrath Chapter Summaries and Characters Book-A-Minute: Grapes of Wrath Grapes of Wrath Movie Script  John Steinbeck:   Steinbeck's the Grapes of Wrath-The Bitter Fruit of the Depression NPR-Steinbeck: The Creation of the Grapes of Wrath Reading the Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck Chronology John Steinbeck Chronology and Grapes of Wrath Analysis Monterey Historical Society: John Steinbeck Chronology The Grapes of Wrath Project: purpose, style, structure; point of view; poor & rich; Emerson Steinbeck's myth of the Okies by Keith Windschuttle Steinbeck on the Web Steinbeck's Advice to Young Writers The National John Steinbeck Center: The California Novels of John Steinbeck: Steinbeck Steinbeck Nobel Prize speech Grapes of Wrath Movie Script Nobel Prize Excerpt     The Great Plains Environment: Essays Historians The Dust Bowl: Could it Happen Again? By John Russell Pursell The Dust Bowl and Agricultural Capitalism "An Environmental Disaster to the Plains Region" an article dealing with "The Great Plow-Up" "From the Roaring Twenties to the Dirty Thirties," by Mary Ryals "Steinbeck's Myth of the Okies," by Keith Windschuttle