The work of independent artists was also influenced by the crises of the Dust Bowl and the Depression. Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb, wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust Bowl. Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown, was written in 1939, but was eclipsed and shelved in response to Steinbeck's success, and was not published till 2004.See: Lanzendorfer, Joy, "The forgotten Dust Bowl novel that rivaled 'The Grapes of Wrath'" , Smithsonian.com, 2016 May 23. "Sanora Babb" , The Dust Bowl: a film by Ken Burns, PBS.org (2012) For the role of Tom Collins of the Farm Security Administration in Steinbeck's novel, see: John Steinbeck with Robert Demott, ed., Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938–1941 (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), pp. xxvii–xxviii , 33 (journal entry for 1938 June 24). Many of folk singer Woody Guthrie's songs, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".Alarik, Scott. Robert Burns unplugged. The Boston Globe, August 7, 2005. Retrieved on December 5, 2007.
The work of independent artists was also influenced by the crises of the Dust Bowl and the Depression. Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb, wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust Bowl. Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown, was written in 1939, but was eclipsed and shelved in response to Steinbeck's success, and was not published till 2004.See: Lanzendorfer Joy, "The forgotten Dust Bowl novel that rivaled 'The Grapes of Wrath'" , Smithsonian.com, 2016 May 23. "Sanora Babb" , The Dust Bowl: a film by Ken Burns, PBS.org (2012) For the role of Tom Collins of the Farm Security Administration in Steinbeck's novel, see: John Steinbeck with Robert Demott, ed., Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938–1941 (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1990), pp. xxvii–xxviii , 33 (journal entry for 1938 June 24). Many of folk singer Woody Guthrie's songs, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickna,me the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".Alarik, Scott. Robert Burns unplugged. The Boston Globe, August 7, 2005. Retrieved on December 5, 2007.