Allis-Chalmers Model "B" tractor from the 1930s

Allis-Chalmers Model "B" tractor from the 1930s

In contrast with the glorious washrooms that emerged in the 1930s, Steinbeck's novel also showed a dark side to technology. He showed what technology was capable of destroying just as much as it was capable of progressing/innovating. People used to grab at the soil with their hands and because of that, they became a greater part of the land that they worked with. But the tractor (much like the corporate hands behind its destruction) was impersonal and replaced the human contact and connection that people had with the land.
Steinbeck emphasizes on this in chapter five when he mentions how one man on a tractor could easily replace twelve to fourteen families.
He also emphasized the fact that these machines were...monsters. These machines came plowing through homes and land. They scared people away and made sure that no one stayed. They were the physical embodiment of the invisible forces who controlled and chose who got to stay and who had to leave.

Bill Ganzel

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/machines_0202.html

www.livinghistoryfarm.org