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The Grapes of Wrath Author Biography

John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was the third of four children, and the only son born to John Ernst Sr. and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. A fourth child, Mary, was born in 1909. Olive Steinbeck had been a teacher in one-room schools in Big Sur, California, before her marriage to John Sr. After their marriage, the Steinbecks moved to Salinas in 1894, where John Sr. became a manager at the Sperry Flour Mill and later served as treasurer of Monterey County.

Salinas is located one hundred miles south of San Francisco, near Monterey Bay. At the time of Steinbeck's birth, it was a town with a population of approximately three thousand. During John's early childhood, the first automobiles could be seen rumbling through town. Family life was apparently secure and happy. Steinbeck's father quickly recognized his son's...
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