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Government Reform Programs

5m 16s
By 1937, the Dust Bowl farmers are asking for government help in regulating the land by forcing other farmers to take better care of their soil. They even consider declaring martial law. For many farmers who had previously demonstrated independence and suspicion of government, this is a substantial ideological turnaround.
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Photographers of the Dust Bowl

4m 41s
During the Great Depression FDR's administration sought to document the economic crisis. Roosevelt's Farm Security Administration (FSA) was put in charge of the effort, which employed some of the country's most talented photographers.
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Boom Time

3m 24s
The Great Plains goes through a boom period as land speculators tout the miraculous advantages of farming wheat. Government and private industry encourage the settlement and development of the region.
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Lessons

4m 54s
With better weather the suitcase farmers returned and the same process that caused the dust bowl started again in the 1940s. What lessons can we take from what happened during the Dust Bowl?
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Woody Guthrie: Okies

2m 19s
No matter their state of origin, all newcomers were dubbed Okies when they crossed the California border. Woody Guthrie talks about the extreme poverty he had seen across the country and sings "I Ain't Got No Home (In This World Any More)".
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Arthur Rothstein

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.
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Extended Look

1m 43s
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..
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