Written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath describes the Depression era journey of the fictional Joad family from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma to the agricultural fields of California. A film version of the novel, directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda, followed in 1940. Together with evocative photographs by Dorothea Lange, the novel and film focused national attention on the plight of migrant farm workers in California and earned Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1940.

The novel recounts the westward journey of the Joads, a three-generation Oklahoma family pushed off their land through a combination of dust storms and foreclosures. Eldest son Tom returns home from the state penitentiary to find the family preparing to head to California in the hopes of obtaining work and eventually a farm of their own. Tom, along with parents, grandparents...