Great Depression Exposed In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

John Steinbeck is the author of ‘Of Mice And Men’ and he was born in Salinas, California in 1902 just over a hundred years ago. Some of his most famous books was written in the 1930’s and the 1940’s and are set in California. Most of his works focus on lives and problems of working people, often times these people were immigrants who went to California looking for work or a better life. Of Mice And Men is set in the farmland of the Salinas valley, the same valley where Steinbeck was born. As a young man, Steinbeck worked as a farm hand for his farther. In the novella you see that the main characters George and Lennie work in a ranch near Soledad and there is a town called Weed nearby. The Salinas river winds around the area, an area that John
The great depression was unprecedented in its length, the wholesale poverty, and tragedy it inflicted on society. During the great depression there were any migrant farm workers. During this time the work of three hundred men could now be done by five. There was less work and more machinery that could handle the wheat harvesting that taking place. Migrants farm workers earned little money along with food and basic accommodation. At the same time as the great depression, there was six years without rain which caused the ‘dust bowl’. Because of the dust bowl, the farmers in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas had no choices but to sell or forfeit their farms to banks and migrate to fertile lands. Migrant farm workers lived from job to job just like the main characters in the novella, Of Mice And Men. The president Franklin Delano Roosevelt helped alleviate the effects of the great depression when he took over president Hoover. He created domestic reform programs, economic policies, agriculture policies and relief policies that helped end the great