The Dust Bowl

2012 - 2012

The Great Plow Up

18th November 2012

Episode 1

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.

Reaping the Whirlwind

19th November 2012

Episode 2

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.

Top Cast

Patricia Clarkson•Peter Coyote•Carolyn McCormick

Director

Ken Burns

Writer

Dayton Duncan

Documentary

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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Production Companies

Full Cast

Patricia Clarkson

Hazel Lucas Shaw

Peter Coyote

Carolyn McCormick

Caroline Henderson

Full Crew

Ken Burns

Director

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Dayton Duncan

Writer

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Julie A. Dunfey

Producer

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Dayton Duncan

Producer

Ken Burns

Producer

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