The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962. Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the
Southern Tenant Farmers Union their land out of production; the money was paid to the landowners. The landowners were expected to share this money with the tenant farmers. While a small percentage of the landowners did share the income, the majority did not. The Southern Tenant Farmers' Union was one of few unions in the 1930s that was open to all races. They promoted non-violent protest to gain their fair share of the AAA money. They also promoted the goal of blacks and whites working efficiently together. The Farmers' Union met with harsh resistance from the landowners and local public officials. The Southern Tenant