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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Sanora Babb Joins the FSA
S1 - 1m 16s
Sanora Babb, an author, poet, editor and journalist, joins the Farm Security Administration to help refugees.
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Reform
S1 -
In the summer of 1936, Roosevelt takes a whistle-stop tour across the Midwest and Northern Plains to see the crisis himself. He inspires enthusiastic, but weary, audiences. At the same time, Hugh Bennett, head of the Soil Conservation Service, begins instituting his program of agricultural reform and offering incentives to those farmers who will adopt the new farming methods.
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Trying To Get Ahead
S1 -
Calvin Crabill talks about how his father drove a tractor at night to try to get ahead.
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Black Sunday
S1 -
Sunday April 14, 1935 became known as Black Sunday.
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CA Work
S1 -
People who moved to CA were known as Okies. They faced lots of discrimination from the local residents.
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Trixie Travis Brown: Housekeeping
S1 -
Trixie Travis Brown Talks About Housekeeping.
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The Coens Talk About How They Ended Up In The Great Plains
S1 -
The Coens talk about how they ended up in the southern Great Plains.
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First Look | End of the World's Coming
S1 - 20s
Survey the causes of the worst man-made ecological disaster in U.S. history: the catastrophic dust storms of the 1930s.
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Robert Boots McCoy Talks About Burning Cow Chips
S1 -
Robert Boots McCoy talks about burning cow chips.
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Boom Time
S1 - 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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Photographers of the Dust Bowl
S1 - 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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Woody Guthrie
S1 -
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.
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