The Migrant Workers of the Dirty Thirties

The "Dirty Thirties" brought much struggle to the people of North America. With the stock market crash of 1929 and the droughts and dust storms that dominated the next ten years, life in the Great Plains region of the United States was miserable. Many families packed up as many belongings as they could manage and began their journey to find work. Some families went towards California and the West and others went towards the East. John Steinbeck, who was born in the Salinas Valley of California, witnessed first hand much of this migration to the West and he wrote many books pertaining to his home state. Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath are two such examples, examining two very different migrant families during the 1930s. Steinbeck's books have often been criticized for being untrue to the history they explore (Timmerman 5). Nevertheless, the characters in these two books have certain elements in common with migrant workers of the Depression. …