John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California and came from a family of moderate means. He went to college at Stanford University but never graduated. In 1925 he went to New York, where he tried for a few years to establish himself as a free-lance writer, but ended up failing and returned to California. After publishing some novels and short stories, Steinbeck was known as the mastermind of Tortilla Flat, a series of humorous stories about Monterey paisanos. 

After the rough and earthy humor of Tortilla Flat, he moved on to more serious fiction such as In Dubious Battle, which deals with the strikes of the migratory fruit pickers on California plantations. He also wrote the book Of Mice and Men, the story of the Lennie and George and their dream about owning a farm. In 1939 he published what is considered by many his best work, The Grapes of Wrath, the story of Oklahoma tenant farmers who moved to California where they became migratory workers. 

He had many other classic books such as the East of Eden, The Winter of Our Discontent, and Travels with Charley. With all the accomplishments he had made, he died in New York City in 1968. 

The Great Depression
The Great Depression was the worst and longest economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world, lasting from the end of 1929 until the early 1940s. Beginning in the United States, the depression quickly spread to the world's industrial countries. The Great Depression caused rapid declines in the production and sale of goods, causing a severe rise in unemployment. Businesses and banks closed their doors, people lost their jobs, homes, and savings, and many depended on charity to survive. In 1933, more than 15 million Americans were unemployed

The depression was caused by a number of serious weaknesses in the economy. Although the 1920s appeared on the surface to be a prosperous time, income was unevenly distributed. The wealthy made large profits, but more and more Americans spent more than they earned, and farmers faced low prices and heavy debt. The lingering effects of World War I (1914-1918) caused economic problems in many countries, as Europe struggled to pay war debts and reparations. These problems contributed to the crisis that began the Great Depression: the disastrous U.S. stock market crash of 1929, which ruined thousands of investors and destroyed confidence in the economy. Continuing throughout the 1930s, the depression ended in the United States only when massive spending for World War II began.

The depression produced lasting effects on the United States that are still apparent more than half a century after it ended. It led to the election of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who created the programs known as the New Deal to overcome the effects of the Great Depression. These programs expanded government intervention into new areas of social and economic concerns and created social-assistance measures on the national level. The Great Depression fundamentally changed the relationship between the government and the people, who came to expect and accept a larger federal role in their lives and the economy.

The programs of the New Deal also brought together a new, liberal political alliance in the United States. Roosevelt’s policies won the support of labor unions, blacks, people who received government relief, ethnic and religious minorities, intellectuals, and some farmers, forming a coalition that would be the backbone of the Democratic Party for decades to come.