The Grapes of Wrath

Trailer:

Gabe Johnson's review for the New York Times:

A student's view: "The Dust Bowl and The Great Depression": 

Woodie Guthrie "Talking Dust Bowl Blues":

Links:

Listen to Brain Naylor's report on The Grapes of Wrath and hear Woody Guthrie's 1940 song "Tom Joad" (npr.org).

Listen to Voices from the American Dust Bowl, including folk songs (Library of Congress).

See photos of America during the Great Depression (Library of Congress).

Information about the PBS film, "Surviving the Dust Bowl" with timeline, maps and other documents about the period (www.pbs.org).

Visit "Weedpatch Camp," the Arvin Federal Government Camp that Steinbeck visited and called "Weedpatch Camp" in The Grapes of Wrath.  The Camp is still used by migrant workers today (www.weedpatchcamp.com).

Study aids for the novel (wwu.edu).

About Route 66 (www.historic66.com), (national66.com).

Gone With the Wind

Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 and was produced as a film by Victor Fleming in 1939.  The movie opens with a musical overture, and "Margaret Mitchell's story of the Old South."  Some of the musical backdrop, such as "Dixie" may seem dated -- not to say racist.

Trailers for the 1939 film by Victor Fleming:

Links:

On-line text of the novel (Gutenberg.net.au)

Frank Nugent's review of the film in the New York Times (December 20, 1939).

Margaret Mitchell House & Museum (Atlanta, Georgia).

Photographs of the Civil War from the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.).

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Banned almost as soon as it was published, for its language, the book has since been adapted into a film 7 times.

The 1939 version, with Mickey Rooney as Huck:



Links:
The Mark Twain House & Museum (Hartford, Connecticut).
Mark Twain in His Times (University of Virginia).