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The Dust Bowl

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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Reaping the Whirlwind

Season 1 Episode 2 | 115m 45s | CC

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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Funding is provided by Bank of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, National Endowment for the Humanities, The Rockefeller Foundation, Wallace Genetic Foundation and members of The Better Angels Society, including the Dana A. Hamel Family Charitable Trust and Robert and Beverly Grappone.

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