Reaping the Whirlwind
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
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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.
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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
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Woody Guthrie: Okies
S1 - 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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Relief
S1 -
Social worker Dorothy Williamson describes her experiences talking with victims of the Dust Bowl. What help there was came from Washington, D.C., with programs such as the CCC, NYA, or WPA.
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Wheat Will Win the War
S1 -
Learn about what caused "The Great Plow Up" and the slogan "Wheat Will Win the War."
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Suicides
S1 -
Multiple suicides took place during the Dust Bowl in the southern Great Plains.
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Heading West
S1 -
Some people packed up their families and headed west.
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FDR Visits the Dust Bowl
S1 -
The rains followed FDR on his second trip to the Dust Bowl.
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Trixie Travis Brown: Almost Moving to Idaho
S1 -
Trixie Travis Brown Talks About Almost Moving to Idaho.
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Dale Coen Talks About Dust Storms
S1 -
Dale Coen talks about dust storms.
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Dale Coen Reads a Poem by his Mother
S1 -
Dale Coen reads a poem by his mother about why she moved to the Great Plains.
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The Depression Comes to the Southern Plains
S1 - 5m 45s
Wheat prices continue to fall and a drought begins, farmers elect a democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, for president.
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Caroline Henderson
S1 - 2m 35s
From the time she was a young girl, Caroline Henderson dreamed of having a piece of land she could call her own.
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Government Reform Programs
S1 -
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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