Of Mice and Men | Historical Context
Agriculture during the Great Depression
During the late 1930s, California was struggling not only with the economic problems of the Great Depression, but also with severe labor strife. Labor conflicts occurred on the docks and packing sheds and fields. Steinbeck wrote movingly about the struggles of migrant farm workers in three successive novels In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Grapes of Wrath (1939).
Agriculture as a working-culture was undergoing an historic change. In 1938, about half the nation's grain was harvested by mechanical...
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