... at first to accept government help, optimistically believing that better days were ahead. Some moved out of the plains, running from not only drought but from the new machine-controlled agriculture. As John Steinbeck wrote in the bestseller The Grapes of Wrath, "it was not nature that broke the people-they could handle the drought. It was business farming, seeking a better return on land investments and buying tractors to pursue ... it, that had broken these people, smashing their identity as natural beings wedded to the land."(pg. 58) The machines, one-crop specialization, non-resident...

• Word Count: 1344
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... the continuation of the flourishing of mural art as a means of self-expression. The art of literature was also greatly influenced and encouraged by the WPA. The Federal Writers Program supported author John Steinbeck to write his novel "The Grapes of Wrath", an eye opening view of the Great Depression. This seemingly unending support proved to cultivate a sort of people's art that this country had not experienced before nor since the time of the WPA. While the art and literature of the ... WPA was always known for the quantity, it proved to be no less in quality. The programs that spawn...

• Word Count: 1845
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate