Boxcar Homes in The Grapes of Wrath

Boxcar Homes: The Novel and the Play

A Textual Comparison

Near the climax of the the play, the Fourth Narrator (played by Nicole Torres) in Frank Galati’s The Grapes of Wrath describes boxcar homes that migrant farm workers lived in. Nicole asked me for more information about these boxcar homes. I checked the text of Steinbeck’s novel against that of Galati’s play, and discovered that the wording is nearly identical. Chapter 28 begins as follows:

THE boxcars, twelve of them, stood end to end on a little flat beside the stream. There were two rows of six each, the wheels removed. Up to the big sliding doors slatted planks ran for cat-walks. They made good houses, water-tight and draftless, room for twenty-four families, one family in each end of each car. No windows, but the wide doors stood open. In some of the cars a canvas hung down in the center of the car, while in others only the position of the door made the boundary.

The Joads had one end of an end car. Some previous occu­pant had fitted up an oil can with a stovepipe, had made a hole in the wall for the stovepipe. Even with the wide door open, it was dark in the ends of the car. Ma hung the tarpau­lin across the middle of the car.

“It’s nice,” she said. “It’s almost nicer than anything we had ‘cept the gov’ment camp.”

The Fourth Narrator from Galati’s script narrates as follows:

The boxcars, twelve of them, stood end to end on a little flat beside the stream. There were two rows of six each, the wheels removed. Up the big sliding doors slatted planks ran for cat-walks. They made good houses, water-tight and draftless, room for twenty-four families, one family in each end of each car. No windows, but the wide doors stood open. (The rusted side of a boxcar is revealed. The trough of water is open. Pa is standing in the open doorway. Ma and Uncle John are seated nearby. The fourth narrator moves out of sight.)

MA.  It’s nice. It’s almost nicer than anything we had.

Boxcar Homes: Photographs

The Library of Congress American Memory Collection America from the Great Depression to WWII: Black and White Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945, shows some of the boxcar homes in photographs from the period. Some served as overnight stopping points, while others became temporary and even permanent residences.

Just Passing Through: Boxcar Interior

Photo by Jack Delano. July 1940. Migratory agricultural worker asleep in boxcar. Camden, North Carolina. Library of Congress Reproduction No. LC-USF34-040809-D (b&w film neg.)

 Settling in to Temporary Boxcar Homes: Exterior Shots

Photo by Russell Lee. February 1937. Boxcar home of flood refugees near Cache, Illinois. About fourteen were living in this car. Library of Congress Reproduction No. LC-USF34-010249-E (b&w film nitrate neg.)

Photo by Marion Post Wolcott. September 1938. Old boxcars often converted into homes along highway between Charleston and Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. Library of Congress Reproduction No. LC-USF33-030258-M5 (b&w film nitrate neg.)

The Long Haul: “Permanent” Boxcar Housing

Photo by Arthur Rothstein. June 1939. Boxcar home for sugar beet workers. Treasure County, Montana. Library of Congress Reproduction No. LC-USF34-027559-D (b&w film neg.)

Photo by Russell Lee. November 1940. Home of married couple working on Earl Fruit Company ranch. Kern County, California. These houses have been made from boxcars. Library of Congress Reproduction No. LC-USF34-038026-D (b&w film neg.)