1. Of Mice and Men

2. Biography He was born in Salinas, California in 1902.
He lived and worked in California.
He worked on a dredging crew or in a sugar plant to get money for college although he never completed a degree.
He met hoboes, fruit-pickers and migrant workers through his work.
‘I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley, of all the little towns and all the farms and the ranches in the wilder hills. I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world.” Steinbeck’s letter to George Albee, Salinas, 1933
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962
His best known novels include: The Grapes of Wrath, The Pearl, East of Eden, Tortilla Flat and The Red Pony
He died in 1968

3. Steinbeck’s America

6. ‘The ancient commission of the writer has not changed
‘The ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.’
‘Man himself has become our greatest hazard and our only hope. So that today, Saint John the Apostle may well be paraphrased: In the end is the word, and the word is man, and the word is with man.’
From: John Steinbeck’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech

7. The Roaring Twenties $ movie Gin Jazz Flappers
Model Tlindbergh makes the first Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St Louis
Bath Tub gin
$5 a day
Movies
Urban and commercial growth Coolidge: ‘America’s business is business’
movie
Gin

8. Coolidge: ‘America’s business is business
Jazz
Flappers
$5 a day
Coolidge: ‘America’s business is business
Movies
Transatlantic flight
Model T
Hooch

9. BUT…… Klu klux klan Prohibition Racial intolerance
Palmer raids fear of Communism
Hope and despair
Growing provincialism
Restrictive immigration laws
women

10. Great Depression Most severe economic downturn in American history
Began with the Stock Market crash of 29 October 1929
Lasted until the start of American involvement in World War II
Unemployment rose to 30%
50% of commercial banks failed
Crop prices fell by 50%
Over-production led to unemployment
Hunger, despair, poverty, homelessness – millions of Americans had their lives destroyed

17. New Deal
The New Deal was Franklin Roosevelt’s response to the Great Depression
One of the movements was the establishment of a modern Welfare State while preserving the capitalist system
Women, blacks and other minorities gained little from the New Deal
The effects of the Depression were exacerbated (made worse) by the ecological disaster of the Dust Bowl which caused many to migrate to California in search of the American Dream – the promised land and wealth

18. The American Dream

19. The Reality

25. The Book
Of Mice and Men was originally called Something That Happened.
When Steinbeck first thought of the idea for the book he intended it to be for children. Steinbeck told a friend that he was experimenting with a new 'dramatic form'.
In May 1936 he had a written manuscript - but his puppy (a setter called Toby) ate it!
He said of the book:
"It is an experiment and I don't know how successful." .

27. Lennie, George and rabbits