Great Depression writing, as authors have sought to evaluate an era that caused both financial and emotional trauma. Perhaps the most noteworthy and famous novel written on the subject is "The Grapes of Wrath", published in 1939 and written by John Steinbeck, who was awarded both the Nobel Prize for literature and the Pulitzer Prize for the work. The novel focuses on a poor family of sharecroppers who are forced from their home as drought, economic hardship, and changes in the agricultural industry occur during the Great Depression. Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" is another important novella about a journey during the
Southern Tenant Farmers Union went mainly to the plantation owners and left tenant farmers and sharecroppers unemployed without any aid from the federal government. East and Mitchell created the Unemployed League with other farmers in Tyronza, Arkansas, to fight the local plantation owners' retention of federal relief payments under the New Deal. The Unemployed League was able to distribute this aid among the land workers of Delta; soon after the league disbanded. The cause and organization were revived in 1934 when the STFU was created. STFU's main goal was to advocate for the distribution of New Deal subsidies from plantation owners to tenant farmers.