The Reception of the Grapes of Wrath in Oklahoma

Abstract

M OST OF US remember the sensational reception of The Grapes of Wrath (i939), Mr. Westbrook Pegler's column about the vile language of the book, Raymond Clapper's column recommending the book to economic royalists, Mr. Frank J. Taylor's article in the Forulm attacking factual inaccuracies, and the editorial in Collier's charging communistic propaganda. Many of us also remember that the Associated Farmers of Kern County California, denounced the book as obscene sensationalism and propaganda in its vilest form, that the Kansas City Board of Education banned the book from Kansas City libraries, and that the Library Board of East St. Louis banned it and ordered the librarian to burn the three copies which the library owned. These items were carried in the Oklahoma press. The Forum's article was even reprinted in the Sunday section of the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman on October 29, I939, with the editor's headnote of approval. With such publicity, The Grapes of Wrath sold sensationally in Oklahoma bookstores. Most stores consider it their best seller, excepting only Gone With the Wind. One bookstore in Tulsa reported about oiae thousand sales. Mr. Hollis Russell of Stevenson's Bookstore in Oklahoma City told me, People who looked as though they had never read a book in their lives came in to buy it. Of thirty libraries answering my letter of inquiry, only four, including one state college library, do not own at least one copy of the book, and the Tulsa Public Library owns twenty-eight copies. Most libraries received the book soon after publication in the spring of I939. Librarians generally agreed that the circulation of The Grapes of Wrath was second only to that of Gone With the Wind, although three librarians reported equal circulation for the two books, and one (Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College) reported The Grapes of Wrath their most widely circulated volume. The librarians often added that many private copies circulated widely in their communities, and some called attention to the ex-