| The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas pays tribute
to Nobel Prize recipient John Steinbeck, who wrote novels set in the Monterey
Bay and Salinas Valley region. This native son is honored with a 37,000
square feet facility which contains permanent exhibits,
a wing for special programs, museum store and a research room with a collections
area of over 45,000 artifacts, manuscripts, historical documents and film
archives. Scholars and researchers from around the world have found single
point access to items relating to the prolific author since the museum opened its doors in the fall of 1998.
Built at the historical center of
Salinas on the end of South Main Street, initial funding for the National
Steinbeck Center came from the Packard Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Los Altos which also funded the internationally
famous Monterey Aquarium.
An American author with an international following, John
Steinbeck's books have been translated into over 30 languages. When he
received the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Swedish academy noted,
"His sympathies always go out to the oppressed, the misfits, and the distressed;
he likes to contrast the simple joy of life with the brutal and cynical
craving for money. But in him we find the American temperament also expressed
in his great feeling for nature, for the tilled soil, the waste land, the
mountains and the ocean coasts, all an inexhaustible source of inspiration
to Steinbeck."
The Steinbeck Collection began in the 1950s with the purchase
of several of the author's first edition books. Donations
received from family members include Elaine Steinbeck, Steinbeck's widow;
Steinbeck's sisters, Elizabeth Steinbeck Ainsworth, and Esther Rodgers,
and John Steinbeck's sons, Thom Steinbeck, and John Steinbeck IV.
The collection continues to grow with generous donations from patrons around
the world. |
