The Dust Bowl

Woody Guthrie

Woody Guthrie moves to Los Angeles in the second half of the 1930s and supports himself with odd jobs. He finally gets a radio show of his own and a newspaper column called “Woody Sez” and gains a reputation as a radical for sympathizing with the migrants.

Woody Guthrie

3m 34s

  • 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.

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