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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First Look | Suffocating Blackness
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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Making The Dust Bowl | Uncovering the Dust Bowl
S1 - 5m 55s
Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan discuss making The Dust Bowl and the myriad hardships facing those in the Panhandle during the 1930s.
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Modern Machinery
S1 -
Modern machinery made farming more profitable and changed the structure of the land for growing wheat. The result was more land speculation, more acreage turned over to wheat farming, and a blind faith that the good times wouldn’t end, but warning signs were evident.
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You Gave Us Beer, Now Give Us Water
S1 -
FDR was greeted with signs along the road saying "You gave us beer. Now give us water."
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Buying Land
S1 -
Land prices are going up and people say the climate is undergoing a permanent shift.
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Jack Rabbits
S1 -
Plagues of jack rabbits swarmed the great plains destroying everything in their path.
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Gas Money
S1 -
"Do you have enough gas money?" Some people moved west to get away from the storms.
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Sanora Babb's Account Beat Out by the Grapes of Wrath
S1 -
Sanora Babb sent chapters of her book back to New York, but John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is so popular, that her editor recommends holding off on publication. It is eventually published in 2004, a year before her death.
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Mr. Huff
S1 - 4m 33s
Raymond Huff, Superindendent of Schools of Union County hired the entire town to build the new high school in Clayton, NM. He used the WPA to save the County.
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Tex Pace
S1 - 5m 8s
Tex Pace left the panhandle for CA and convinced his family to follow him. He lived and worked in Visalia, CA in a new work camp. He met his wife Dorothy at a camp talent show and got married at the local movie theater.
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Sanora's Return
S1 - 3m 26s
Sanora Babb, a journalist from No Man's Land, returns to her childhood home and is struck by the leveling of social distinction between her old neighbors.
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