History

The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the Great Plow-Up, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation.

Reaping the Whirlwind

1h 55m

Black Sunday was only halfway through the decade-long crisis. The storms continued. The Great Depression still affected people. Government programs were instituted to help. Learn what FDR’s administration did to try to keep the southern Plains from becoming a North American Sahara desert. Find out why some residents finally decided they had to give up and move somewhere else and how some held on.

Episodes

  • Reaping the Whirlwind: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Reaping the Whirlwind

    S1 E2 - 1h 55m

    Black Sunday was only halfway through the decade-long crisis. The storms continued. The Great Depression still affected people. Government programs were instituted to help. Learn what FDR’s administration did to try to keep the southern Plains from becoming a North American Sahara desert. Find out why some residents finally decided they had to give up and move somewhere else and how some held on.

  • The Great Plow-Up: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    The Great Plow-Up

    S1 E1 - 1h 55m

    The grasslands of the southern Plains were rapidly turned into wheat fields. Then following the early years of the drought, storms killed crops and livestock and literally rearranged the landscape. The worst storm of them all was on April 14, 1935—Black Sunday—a searing experience for everyone caught in it, including a young songwriter from Pampa, Texas, named Woody Guthrie.

Extras + Features

  • Recovery: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Recovery

    S1 - 4m 20s

    In 1935, 850 million acres of topsoil are swept off the Great Plains, with more dust storms to come. President Franklin Roosevelt’s inner circle does not want the area to turn into an “Arabian Desert.”

  • New Deal Programs: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    New Deal Programs

    S1 - 3m 39s

    Help came to the Great Plains by way of New Deal programs.

  • CA Border: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    CA Border

    S1 - 1m 25s

    Some people were arrested on the CA border for not having enough money.

  • First Look | Just Like Midnight: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    First Look | Just Like Midnight

    S1 - 20s

    Survey the causes of the worst man-made ecological disaster in U.S. history: the catastrophic dust storms of the 1930s.

  • The Dust Bowl Intro: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    The Dust Bowl Intro

    S1 - 5m 9s

    The Dust Bowl was a decade-long natural catastrophe of biblical proportions and the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history. It is the classic tale of humans pushing too hard on nature and nature pushing back during a period of economic boom and bust in the 1920s and 1930s.

  • Arthur Rothstein: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Arthur Rothstein

    S1 - 3m

    Arthur Rothstein was 21 years old when he went to No Man's Land to take pictures for the federal government's Resettlement Administration.

  • Okies: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Okies

    S1 - 6m 20s

    Woody Guthrie sings “I Ain’t Got No Home” and talks of how the migrant families traveling to California inspired him. The immigrant population explodes in California as thousands of people move there to find work and a better life. Those from the Dust Bowl, whether they are from Oklahoma or not, are called “Okies.”

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