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I don't know how Mr. Steinbeck still enjoyed his fame and legacy while being found as a major benefitciar of intellectual misconduct, and obviously belittle wom

I don't know how Mr. Steinbeck still enjoyed his fame and legacy while being found as a major benefitciar of intellectual misconduct, and obviously belittle women. When he was writing the grapes of wraith, he was reading Sanora Babb's manuscript from his publisher friends. He was already an established writer, and managed to publish his own work heavily borrowed the structure and major plot from Sanora's work. And obviously, no publishers are willing to publish Snora's work, because Mr. Steinbeck is telling them he is writing one that is very similar (which is obvious, because he is essentially copy the book's story line). Ms. Babb's work is only published in 2004, 70 years later after its original completion in 1930s. I think Mr. Steinbeck probably deserve being stripped of his Nobel prize for this blatant misconduct. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whose_Names_Are_Unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whose_Names_Are_Unknown

echelon 5y ago
I have never even once heard this accusation. I skimmed his Wikipedia article and didn't see a reference to any of this. Is there clear plagiarism? The Great Depression wasn't exactly an obscure topic and was still fresh in the minds of many people at the time. What is going on? Is this posthumous cancel culture? Wasn't it prudent to look for similar media and clear the wake? Publishing was a smaller, more difficult world back then and publishers wouldn't back two of the same thing. Wouldn't you drum up support for the novel you worked on? Especially after having struggled for years as a manual laborer trying to make it? Would you willingly table your book that you worked on so that someone else could take your place? Is that malice? Unless there's clear evidence, it's like saying Marvel plagiarizes DC. And that Disney should be cancelled for scheduling their movie premieres around the best moviegoing dates. (Is that highly competitive? Sure. Evil? no...?)
- elliekelly 5y ago
  The reason you’ve never heard of this accusation is because it was Babb who was wrongly “cancelled” soon after she wrote her novel. She was the subject of intense FBI scrutiny for her “leftist” writing and blacklisted by the “House Un-American Committee” so she fled to Mexico. She also dared to marry an Asian man as a white woman which was not just frowned upon at the time but illegal. Regardless, I think it’s odd you find something utterly unbelievable simply because you haven’t heard it until today. Surely the entire internet is full of true things that you, and I, and most people have never heard of? Not having heard a piece of information before doesn’t make it any less credible.
  - echelon 5y ago
    Good points. > She was the subject of intense FBI scrutiny for her “leftist” writing and blacklisted by the “House Un-American Committee” so she fled to Mexico. She also dared to marry an Asian man as a white woman which was not just frowned upon at the time but illegal. That's awful. :(
    - lucretian 5y ago
      the original comment is itself perhaps over-confident in its accusation. as far as i can tell, the known facts about what materials steinbeck received of babb's are hazy. certainly seems suspicious though.
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      It's still illegal for a white woman to marry an Asian man if she's already married to a white man. Still awful. I'm just making a point that these social norms are pretty relative and if you don't have any underlying system of morals to judge them by, you'll probably just end up reinforcing whatever morals your own society already has, with no regard to their awfulness.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    Also her leftist tie was derived from her marriage to a Chinese man: """ Howe met his wife, a white woman named Sanora Babb, before World War II. They traveled to Paris in 1937 to marry, but their marriage was not recognized by the state of California until 1948, after the law banning interracial marriage was abolished.[5][13] Due to the ban, the "morals clause" in Howe's studio contracts prohibited him from publicly acknowledging his marriage to Babb. They would not cohabit due to his traditional Chinese views, so they had separate apartments in the same building.[14] During the early years of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, Babb was blacklisted due to supposedly having Communist ties from her marriage to Howe; she moved to Mexico City to protect the "graylisted" Howe from racial harassment.[5][15] Howe raised his godson, producer and director Martin Fong after Fong arrived in the United States. """ From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wong_Howe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wong_Howe
- kingnight 5y ago
  Answers to your questions might be in the Smithsonian mag article here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-bowl-novel-rivaled-grapes-wrath-180959196/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-b...
- bombcar 5y ago
  This is why famously many artists will REFUSE to look at any unpublished works and why places like Disney will return scripts unread, etc.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  > I have never even once heard this accusation. There's some information in the William Souder Biography of Steinbeck that came out last year. Though it wasn't presented as a clear-cut case of plagiarism there were definitely questions. He'd apparently had access to her manuscript for "Whose Names are Unknown" and he and Babb were traveling the migrant worker camps in Central California working on stories for various publications. They did appear to cross paths. I've yet to read "Whose Names are Unknown" to see how similar it might or might not be to "Grapes of Wrath".
- alligatorman 5y ago
  It is mentioned on The Grapes of Wrath wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath#Similarities_to_Whose_Names_Are_Unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath#Similariti...
bnralt 5y ago
The Wikipedia page you linked to doesn't make the claims that you are. It says that Babb volunteered for the FSA to help migrants, and that her supervisor Collins asked her to keep notes on her work there. Collins seems to have later shared the field work notes from her, as well as others, with Steinbeck when he was doing research. There's no claim that he read (or was even aware of) her manuscript, or that he dissuaded her work from being published (it says her publisher decided not to publish it after The Grapes of Wrath was successful). People can read the summaries of both if they like; there doesn't seem to be a lot of overlap other than they're both about downtrodden Okies trying to make it out West. Edit: Also worth noting that Steinbeck's nonfiction account of migrant workers in California, The Harvest Gypsies, was published two years before Babb began her volunteer work with the migrant farmers.

echelon 5y ago

I have never even once heard this accusation. I skimmed his Wikipedia article and didn't see a reference to any of this. Is there clear plagiarism? The Great Depression wasn't exactly an obscure topic and was still fresh in the minds of many people at the time. What is going on? Is this posthumous cancel culture? Wasn't it prudent to look for similar media and clear the wake? Publishing was a smaller, more difficult world back then and publishers wouldn't back two of the same thing. Wouldn't you drum up support for the novel you worked on? Especially after having struggled for years as a manual laborer trying to make it? Would you willingly table your book that you worked on so that someone else could take your place? Is that malice? Unless there's clear evidence, it's like saying Marvel plagiarizes DC. And that Disney should be cancelled for scheduling their movie premieres around the best moviegoing dates. (Is that highly competitive? Sure. Evil? no...?)

elliekelly 5y ago
The reason you’ve never heard of this accusation is because it was Babb who was wrongly “cancelled” soon after she wrote her novel. She was the subject of intense FBI scrutiny for her “leftist” writing and blacklisted by the “House Un-American Committee” so she fled to Mexico. She also dared to marry an Asian man as a white woman which was not just frowned upon at the time but illegal. Regardless, I think it’s odd you find something utterly unbelievable simply because you haven’t heard it until today. Surely the entire internet is full of true things that you, and I, and most people have never heard of? Not having heard a piece of information before doesn’t make it any less credible.
- echelon 5y ago
  Good points. > She was the subject of intense FBI scrutiny for her “leftist” writing and blacklisted by the “House Un-American Committee” so she fled to Mexico. She also dared to marry an Asian man as a white woman which was not just frowned upon at the time but illegal. That's awful. :(
  - lucretian 5y ago
    the original comment is itself perhaps over-confident in its accusation. as far as i can tell, the known facts about what materials steinbeck received of babb's are hazy. certainly seems suspicious though.
  - exporectomy 5y ago
    It's still illegal for a white woman to marry an Asian man if she's already married to a white man. Still awful. I'm just making a point that these social norms are pretty relative and if you don't have any underlying system of morals to judge them by, you'll probably just end up reinforcing whatever morals your own society already has, with no regard to their awfulness.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  Also her leftist tie was derived from her marriage to a Chinese man: """ Howe met his wife, a white woman named Sanora Babb, before World War II. They traveled to Paris in 1937 to marry, but their marriage was not recognized by the state of California until 1948, after the law banning interracial marriage was abolished.[5][13] Due to the ban, the "morals clause" in Howe's studio contracts prohibited him from publicly acknowledging his marriage to Babb. They would not cohabit due to his traditional Chinese views, so they had separate apartments in the same building.[14] During the early years of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings, Babb was blacklisted due to supposedly having Communist ties from her marriage to Howe; she moved to Mexico City to protect the "graylisted" Howe from racial harassment.[5][15] Howe raised his godson, producer and director Martin Fong after Fong arrived in the United States. """ From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wong_Howe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wong_Howe
kingnight 5y ago
Answers to your questions might be in the Smithsonian mag article here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-bowl-novel-rivaled-grapes-wrath-180959196/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/forgotten-dust-b...
bombcar 5y ago
This is why famously many artists will REFUSE to look at any unpublished works and why places like Disney will return scripts unread, etc.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
> I have never even once heard this accusation. There's some information in the William Souder Biography of Steinbeck that came out last year. Though it wasn't presented as a clear-cut case of plagiarism there were definitely questions. He'd apparently had access to her manuscript for "Whose Names are Unknown" and he and Babb were traveling the migrant worker camps in Central California working on stories for various publications. They did appear to cross paths. I've yet to read "Whose Names are Unknown" to see how similar it might or might not be to "Grapes of Wrath".
alligatorman 5y ago
It is mentioned on The Grapes of Wrath wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath#Similarities_to_Whose_Names_Are_Unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath#Similariti...

bnralt 5y ago

The Wikipedia page you linked to doesn't make the claims that you are. It says that Babb volunteered for the FSA to help migrants, and that her supervisor Collins asked her to keep notes on her work there. Collins seems to have later shared the field work notes from her, as well as others, with Steinbeck when he was doing research. There's no claim that he read (or was even aware of) her manuscript, or that he dissuaded her work from being published (it says her publisher decided not to publish it after The Grapes of Wrath was successful). People can read the summaries of both if they like; there doesn't seem to be a lot of overlap other than they're both about downtrodden Okies trying to make it out West. Edit: Also worth noting that Steinbeck's nonfiction account of migrant workers in California, The Harvest Gypsies, was published two years before Babb began her volunteer work with the migrant farmers.