On April 14, 1939, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published. Critic Peter Lisca says that at the time of publication, Steinbeck's novel "was a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national radio; but above all, it was read." Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes, and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work.
"Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts...perhaps the fear of a loss of power." ~John Steinbeck