A collection of newspaper articles about Dust Bowl migrants in California’s Central Valley by the author of The Grapes of Wrath, accompanied by photos. Three years before his triumphant novel The Grapes of Wrath—a fictional portrayal of a Depression-era family fleeing Oklahoma during a disastrous period of drought and dust storms—John Steinbeck wrote seven articles for the San Francisco News about these history-making events and the hundreds of thousands who made their way west to work as farm laborers. With the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter and the emotional power of a novelist in his prime, Steinbeck toured the squatters’ camps and Hoovervilles of rural California. The Harvest Gypsies gives us an eyewitness account of the horrendous Dust Bowl migration, and provides the factual foundation for Steinbeck’s masterpiece. Included are twenty-two photographs by Dorothea Lange and others, many of which accompanied Steinbeck’s original articles. '”Steinbeck’s potent blend of empathy and moral outrage was perfectly matched by the photographs of Dorothea Lange, who had caught the whole saga with her camera—the tents, the jalopies, the bindlestiffs, the pathos and courage of uprooted mothers and children.”—San Francisco Review of Books “Steinbeck’s journalism shares the enduring quality of his famous novel…Certain to engage students of both American literature and labor history.”—Publishers Weekly

California, Wallace Stegner observed, is like the rest of the United States, only more so. Indeed, the Golden State has always seemed to be a place where the hopes and fears of the American dream have been played out in a bigger and bolder way. And no one has done more to capture this epic story than Kevin Starr, in his acclaimed series of gripping social and cultural histories. Now Starr carries his account into the 1930s, when the political extremes that threatened so much of the Depression-ravaged world--fascism and communism--loomed large across the California landscape. In Endangered Dreams, Starr paints a portrait that is both detailed and panoramic, offering a vivid look at the personalities and events that shaped a decade of explosive tension. He begins with the rise of radicalism on the Pacific Coast, which erupted when the Great Depression swept over California in the 1930s. Starr captures the triumphs and tumult of the great agricultural strikes in the Imperial Valley, the San Joaquin Valley, Stockton, and Salinas, identifying the crucial role played by Communist organizers; he also shows how, after some successes, the Communists disbanded their unions on direct orders of the Comintern in 1935. The highpoint of social conflict, however, was 1934, the year of the coastwide maritime strike, and here Starr's narrative talents are at their best, as he brings to life the astonishing general strike that took control of San Francisco, where workers led by charismatic longshoreman Harry Bridges mounted the barricades to stand off National Guardsmen. That same year socialist Upton Sinclair won the Democratic nomination for governor, and he launched his dramatic End Poverty in California (EPIC) campaign. In the end, however, these challenges galvanized the Right in a corporate, legal, and vigilante counterattack that crushed both organized labor and Sinclair. And yet, the Depression also brought out the finest in Californians: state Democrats fought for a local New Deal; California natives helped care for more than a million impoverished migrants through public and private programs; artists movingly documented the impact of the Depression; and an unprecedented program of public works (capped by the Golden Gate Bridge) made the California we know today possible. In capturing the powerful forces that swept the state during the 1930s--radicalism, repression, construction, and artistic expression--Starr weaves an insightful analysis into his narrative fabric. Out of a shattered decade of economic and social dislocation, he constructs a coherent whole and a mirror for understanding our own time.

Dr. Audry Lynch, a Steinbeck scholar, has gathered together twenty reminiscences from people who knew John Steinbeck personally. The interviews cover three periods in Steinbeck's life in California: his childhood in Salinas, his life as a fun-loving crony of Ed "Doc" Ricketts in Cannery Row, and his residence in Los Gatos as an established writer. They show a life lived fully, and a man who knew how to live. These portraits don't sugar-coat or beatify the man John Steinbeck. They are honest and frank views of a person who could be described as an odd boy, a hell-raiser, a drinker and womanizer, and a proud reclusive celebrity. Nevertheless all the people interviewed remember the man fondly, and the composite portrait that comes across is of a brilliant, talented artist and fun-loving loyal friend.

The Long Valley, The Grapes of Wrath, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, The Harvest Gypsies .

THE STORY: Renowned first as a novel, and then as a prize-winning motion picture, the story of the Joad family and their flight from the dust bowl of Oklahoma is familiar to all. Desperately proud, but reduced to poverty by the loss of their farm,

The four essays and introduction explore the issues raised by The Grapes of Wrath.

“In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines the smallest one was Madeline.” Nothing frightens Madeline—not tigers, not even mice. With its endearing, courageous heroine, cheerful humor, and wonderful, whimsical drawings of Paris, the Madeline stories are true classics that continue to charm readers, even after 75 years. Join Madeline in another adventure when she and Pepito run off to join the carnival with a band of traveling gypsies! Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962) was the author of the beloved Madeline books, including Madeline, a Caldecott Honor Book, and Madeline's Rescue, winner of the Caldecott Medal.