Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl

From PBS - The Dust Bowl begins with the deep history of the place the Plains Indians considered home, where the short grasses that covered the treeless expanse sent roots five feet below the ground, forming a dense sod that could withstand the region's periodic droughts and violent weather extremes – nurturing deer, antelope, jackrabbits, and the vast herds of buffalo who grazed in number beyond counting. After the bison were eliminated and the Native Americans were driven onto reservations, cattlemen took over, until severe winters in the 1880s caused the "Beef Bonanza" to go bust. A severe drought in the 1890s pushed homesteaders who had swarmed the area off the land.

From PBS - A few days after Black Sunday, the remnants of the monstrous storm blow into Washington, DC., where Hugh Hammond Bennett, a soil scientist, aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of the film's historical characters, uses the blackened skies to persuade Congress to establish the Soil Conservation Service. A series of government programs attempt to rescue the increasingly desperate inhabitants of the Dust Bowl, many in a state of semi-starvation. Survivors recount stories of eating thistles, and of earning just enough money to get by working for the WPA, NYA and other New Deal programs. Survivors and historians reflect on the lessons learned - or not - by the Dust Bowl.