The Grapes of Wrath

The Grapes of Wrath is a work of fiction written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and it is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes. A celebrated Hollywood film version was made in 1940, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford.

In popular song

• Woody Guthrie wrote The Ballad of Tom Joad the night he saw the film. He described the film in a column:

:"Shows the dam bankers men that broke us and the dust that choked us, and comes right out in plain old English and says what to do about it.

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:"It says you got to get together and have some meetins, and stick together, and raise old billy hell till you get youre job, and get your farm back, and your house and your chickens and your groceries and your clothes, and your money back" (reprinted in Woody Sez , p. 133).

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• In 1995 Bruce Springsteen released an album entitled The Ghost of Tom Joad (featuring a song of the same name, which was later covered by Rage Against The Machine, and most recently covered by José González of Junip).