John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902.He was the third of four children and the only son of John Ernst II and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the Salinas Valley, later called "the salad bowl of the nation." This area would become the setting of many of Steinbeck's stories, and the most famous area associated with him.
Steinbeck's father was a county treasurer and his mother was a teacher. He attended local schools as a child, and later went to Stanford University. He studied marine biology at Stanford between 1920 and…
