A couple of weeks ago, my daughter told us about Kanopy, a video streaming service where one can watch movies for kids and adults free of charge with a library card or a university login.
Here’s what Kanopy says that it offers: documentaries, foreign films, classic cinema, independent films and educational videos that inspire, enrich and entertain. We partner with public libraries and universities to bring you an ad-free experience that can be enjoyed on your TV, mobile phone, tablets and online. https:/www.kanopy.com
So we opened an account–super easy–and since my daughter mentioned she’d watched The Dust Bowl by Ken Burns, we did, too. We were able to keep the documentary for 72 hours.
I’d heard about The Dust Bowl for years, and while it’s not the most popular documentary Ken Burns has directed (The Civil War is), the show was riveting and informative. The video contains amazing film, photographs, and–my favorite of all–input from survivors who shared their memories as children.
How the Dust Bowl Started:
During World War I and continuing into the 1920s, the Great Plains enjoyed a wheat boom where the crop was plentiful and prices were high. Buoyed by this prosperity, farmers attained even more acres and plowed them under, a plan they couldn’t have foreseen would lead to the biggest man-made ecological disaster in America’s history.
Those deep-rooted grasses had held the soil in place for centuries. When the rains stopped in the 1930s, the exposed land turned to powder–literally–and the constant wind wreaked havoc. Crops failed, cattle
suffocated, and children were sickened from breathing dust-filled air. People stuffed wet rags around windows and doors, yet the dirt still came in, coating dishes, beds, and even babies in their cribs. The film doesn’t shy away from the horrific emotional toll, either. Some who were so overwhelmed from the stress, poverty, and unrelenting hardship, took their own lives to end the despair. Including a seven-year-old boy.
Unimaginable heartbreak.
On April 14, 1935—Black Sunday—a massive dust storm rolled across the region, causing blizzards so thick they blotted out the sun. People hid inside their homes and truly believed it was the end of the world. Can you blame them?
Our president at the time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was dedicated to doing what he could to help. He brought on Hugh Hammond Bennett, a soil scientist known as the “father of soil conservation.” Bennett urged farmers to abandon harmful plowing methods and adopt practices that would save the soil before more of the Plains blew away.
How the Dust Bowl Ended:
Eventually, farmers–who initially resisted Bennett’s advice to change their plowing methods–eventually came around to give them a try. And they worked. The land didn’t heal overnight, but his soil saving practices helped reduce erosion, hold more moisture in the ground, and made farming more sustainable. Bennett gave people hope that, with better care, the Plains could still produce crops instead of simply blowing away.
At last, the rains began to return in 1939, bringing relief and signaling the end of the worst years the Plains had ever endured.
The worst of the Dust Bowl struck the southern Great Plains, especially southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, northeastern New Mexico, and the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. By 1940, about 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states, making it one of the largest migrations in American history.
Did anyone in your family ever share stories about the Dust Bowl years?
Have you ever heard a personal story from someone who lived through the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl?