Grapes of Warth: Historical Background

The 1920’s was a decade often referred to ‘the roaring twenties’: a time when successful businessmen were national heroes, when land values were increasing and social traditions were being broken: such as women skirts. Suddenly, the 29 of October of 1929 also referred to as the Black Tuesday: the stock market crashed, triggering the Great Depression, the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world. It spread from the United States to the rest of the world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940s. The country fell into a depression (economically and psychologically), peaking in the winter of 1932, with citizens living on the streets in camps and surviving off government rations. Yet the depression was not the only disaster to arise; the Dust Bowl one of the most devastating weather events in American history happened. The drought hit first in the eastern part of the country in 1930, moving toward the west and affected most the farmlands of United States. Banks failed, businesses closed, and more than 15 million Americans (one-quarter of the workforce) became unemployed. In all, one-quarter of the population left, packing everything they owned into their cars, and headed west, which has been the largest migration in American history. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the plains states; and of those, 200 000 moved to California. (http://www.usq.edu.au/performancecentre/education/thegrapesofwrath/historical.htm)