{"product_id":"the-harvest-gypsies-9781890771614","title":"The Harvest Gypsies","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSelected by NYU as one of the century's best books of American journalism.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGathered in this volume are seven long-form articles that John Steinbeck wrote in 1936 for \u003ci\u003eThe San Francisco News \u003c\/i\u003eabout the plight of migrant farmworkers during the Dust Bowl, accompanied by photographs by Dorothea Lange and others. Steinbeck toured the squatters' camps and Hoovervilles of California, creating unforgettable portraits of once strong, independent farmers reduced to misery. The inquisitiveness and outrage of an investigative reporter combined with the expressive powers of a novelist in his prime fueled \u003ci\u003eThe Harvest Gypsies\u003c\/i\u003e, which in turn furnished the factual and emotional roots for \u003ci\u003eThe Grapes of Wrath\u003c\/i\u003e and has long been hailed as an American classic in its own right.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Steinbeck\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Salinas, CA, in 1902. Steinbeck realized that the migration caused by the Dust Bowl was drastically changing the labor forces of California from the foreign \"cheap labor\" to a higher standard of living for the farm workers. He felt for these migrant workers, and with the help of a friend, Tom Collins, unsuccessfully tried to get federal aid and sympathy, as shown in the articles of\u003ci\u003e The Harvest Gypsies\u003c\/i\u003e. Steinbeck continued in his crusade, publishing \u003ci\u003eThe Grapes of Wrath\u003c\/i\u003e, for which he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCharles Wollenberg\u003c\/b\u003e, former Chair of Social Sciences and Professor of History at Berkeley City College, is coeditor, with Marcia A. Eymann, of \u003ci\u003eWhat's Going On? California and the Vietnam Era\u003c\/i\u003e (University of California Press, 2004) and author of \u003ci\u003eMarinship at War: Shipbuilding and Social Change in Wartime Sausalito\u003c\/i\u003e (Western Heritage, 1990) and \u003ci\u003eBerkeley: A City in History\u003c\/i\u003e (University of California Press, 2008).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Heyday Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50635238146322,"sku":"9781890771614","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b905fc25-1c04-4076-a37d-2e32a93c9581.jpg?v=1732838604","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-harvest-gypsies-9781890771614","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}