Focus on The Grapes of Wrath for The Big Read

The Howland Public Library will host four free programs and a photography exhibit this month dedicated to The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, which is the novel selected for this year’s Poughkeepsie Read, which begins Oct. 9 and is designed to encourage literacy.

grapes of wrath coverOn Tuesday, Oct. 13, at 2:30 p.m. James Cotter, a professor of English at Mount Saint Mary College, will lead a discussion of The Grapes of Wrath.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 2:30 p.m., the library will screen the musical, Gold Diggers of 1933, an example of the films that provided relief from daily worries during the Great Depression.

On Tuesday, Oct. 27, at 2:30 p.m., the library will play Depression-era radio shows such as Fibber McGee and Molly, The Green Hornet and The Shadow, with period refreshments.

Finally, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 3:30 p.m. John T. Reilly, a professor of history at Mount Saint Mary, will speak on the Dust Bowl, the name given to the Great Plains when it was crippled in the 1930s by drought.

The library will also host two exhibits of Farm Security Administration photographs on loan from the FDR Presidential Library & Museum in Hyde Park. Female Photographers/Female Subjects will be on display from Oct. 3 to 16 and Work/Unemployment from Oct. 18 to 31. A companion exhibit, Document, will run from Oct. 10 to Nov. 7 and feature the work of six Hudson Valley documentary photographers. An artist’s reception is scheduled for Beacon Second Saturday, Oct. 10, from 5 to 7 pm.

Several copies of The Grapes of Wrath are available at the library’s front desk, along with a calendar of Poughkeepsie Read events. The library is located at 313 Main St., Beacon. For more information, visit beaconlibrary.org.

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