John Steinbeck s Harvest Gypsies - 1664 Words

The struggle to obtain social reform in the United States for the working class steadily increased with the urbanization of cities and the expansion of industrialization during the 1900’s. This brought about the publication of several works that challenged the government’s policies. As Upton Sinclair addresses in The Jungle, industry workers were refused the basic human rights that the government vowed to protect. Harvest Gypsies, written by John Steinbeck just 30 years later, brought rural farmers’ grievances into the picture after their land was destroyed during the Dust Bowl. The rhetoric used in these works criticizes the exploitative working environment in response to a strong capitalist agenda, discourages the separation of classes caused by the ‘Protestant Ethic’, and attempts to humanize impoverished and overworked communities. Laborers in both the meat packing industry and the farming industry faced severe workplace endangerment that the government deemed as ridiculous assertions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Frustration occurred among such groups as a result of long burdensome hours with abysmal pay. Protests grew increasingly violent, such as the Haymarket Affair in 1886, which dissipated one of the most inclusive unions known as the Knights of Labor. However, the falling of this union did not stop the push for reformation. Upton Sinclair, a well- known muckraker, published a description of the conditions of these industries, namingShow MoreRelatedThe Grapes Of Wrath By John Steinbeck1292 Words   |  6 PagesJohn Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of Tom Joad, a man who leaves his home state of Oklahoma and journeys with his family to California for work during the Great Depression (Steinbeck). However, although fictional, the story hit too close to home for many Americans at the time. Some argued that the book was propaganda and exaggerated the conditions of the working class, and copies were burned in protest (â€Å"Banned Book Awareness†). In reality, Steinbeck s description of the