The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [261]
CHAPTER 14
1 anlage: The first stage in the development of an organism.
2 zygote: An organism developing from a living cell.
3 Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin: Thomas Paine (1737-1809), English-born writer and revolutionary political pamphleteer whose works influenced the American Revolution. Karl Marx (1818-1883), German political theorist, sociologist, and economist; author (with Friedrich Engels) of The Communist Manifesto (1848) and of Das Kapital (1867). Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States. Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924), founder of the Russian Communist Party and leader and inspirer of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
CHAPTER 15
1 *Ti-pi-ti-pi-tin . . . Memory: Lyrics from popular 1938 Mexican song, “Ti-Pi-Tin” by Maria Grever (Spanish) and Raymond Leveen (English). The music, by Maria Grever, was based on Chabriers “España” and Lalos Symphonic Españole; “Thanks for the Memory,” song by Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger, sung by Bob Hope and Shirley Ross in the Hollywood film The Big Broadcast of 1938, for which it won an Academy Award. Bing Crosby, however, did not record it commercially until 1956.
2 Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman: Harry Lillis “Bing” Crosby (1903-1977), popular American crooner, songwriter, and film actor. Called the King of Swing, Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman (1909-1986), was an American clarinetist and orchestra leader known for this brand of American jazz in the 1930s and 1940s.
3 *IITYWYBAD?: If I Tell You, Will You Buy a Drink?
4 Beverly-Wilshire Hotel: Exclusive hotel in Beverly Hills, California.
5 So-and-So: In The Grapes of Wrath typescript (p. 248), Steinbeck used the name of a real movie star, Joan Crawford (1908-1977), but later changed it to this far more innocuous and less libelous reference.
6 Trocadero: Fashionable lounge and night club on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
7 fellow in the White House: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), thirty-second president of the United States (1933-1945).
CHAPTER 16
1 Western Love Stories: Pulp romance magazine that published ten issues between December 1930 and June 1932.
2 Con-rod: The connecting rod attaches the piston to the engine’s crankshaft.
3 babbitt: Tin-alloy metal used as antifriction lining for bearings or for piston rings. Babbitt metal is named for American inventor Isaac Babbitt (1799- 1862).
CHAPTER 18
1 *newspaper fella . . . million acres: Although land baron Henry Miller and his partner Chales Lux monopolized one million acres in California, Steinbeck is alluding to William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951), American journalist, publisher, and financier whose lavish castle, begun in 1919, was situated on 240,000 acres adjacent to the Pacific Ocean at San Simeon, California.
2 Jenny Lind: Celebrated Swedish soprano (1820-1887), who toured the United States, 1850-1852, with great success.
CHAPTER 19
1 Sutter’s Land: The Mexican government deeded land grants totaling thirty-three square leagues in California’s Sacramento valley to German/Swiss immigrant John Augustus Sutter (1804-1880). When gold was discovered on his property in January, 1848, his workmen deserted him, his rancho was ruined, and squatters took over and destroyed his properties. He died impoverished.
2 stew bums: U.S. underworld slang meaning a drunken tramp or any drunkard.
3 *fella . . . wagon: Land and cattle baron Henry Miller (aka Heinrich Alfred Kreiser; 1827-1916) illegally received patents under the U.S. Reclamation Act of 1850 to thousands of acres of alleged swampland when he testified to land officers that it was only traversable by rowboat, even though the boat was mounted on a wagon and towed by horses.
4 fellas that bribed congressmen: A possible reference to the Teapot Dome Scandal. Private oil operators Harry Sinclair of the Mammoth Oil Company and Edward Doheny of Pan American Petroleum Company were charged but acquitted of bribing then Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall in 1922 so that Fall would secretly lease the Naval oil reserves in Wyoming