Time Period: 1931-1939
Themes: The Dust Bowl, farming techniques and environmental impact, soil
conservation, the Great Depression, the New Deal
Lured by the promise of rich, plentiful soil, thousands of settlers came to the
Southern Plains, bringing farming techniques that worked well in the North and
East. The farmers subsequently plowed millions of acres of grassland, only to
have the rains stop in the summer of 1931. The catastrophic eight-year drought
that followed led observers to rename the region "The Dust Bowl."
Before Watching
- Have students identify the five-state region known as the Dust Bowl
on a map of the United States and compile information about the terrain,
general weather patterns, sources of water, and economic activity (farming,
ranching, etc.)
- Before watching, have students recall everything they think they know
about the Dust Bowl? Have they ever heard of it? Who was affected? How and why?
What images come to mind when they think about America in the 1930s?
After Watching
- Read the following quote to your students or write it on the board:
"I felt I was becoming a slave to the land. But I held on to the thought that
this land had to be stopped from blowing. Often I was so full of dust that I
drove blind, unable to see even the radiator cap on my tractor or hear the roar
of the engines. But I kept driving on and on, by guess and instinct. I was
making my last stand in the Dust Bowl."
If you had been part of one of these farm families during the '30s, do you
think you would have wanted to stay on your farm or leave? Why or why not? What
would you lose by leaving? What would you gain?
- At the end of the film, farmers are talking together about the
future. One is hopeful that people will start taking care of the land
differently. Another says, "Don't fool yourself. . . . It's just not in our
blood to play a safe game." What does the farmer mean? Why do you think farmers
might have been unwilling to change their farming practices once the rains
returned?
- Write a diary entry or letter from one of the following points of
view: a farmer who is a member of the "Last Man Club," a mother nursing a child
sick with dust pneumonia, or a healthy child watching the adults cope with the
disaster.
- Have students research the various relief programs offered by the New
Deal. What would have happened to people if relief checks and food handouts
were not available? Was this an appropriate governmental response?
- Have students further study the Dust Bowl era through a range of
historical, literary, and visual sources, including Carey McWilliam's Ill
Fares the Land, John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, James Agee and
Walker Evan's You Have Seen Their Faces, Pare Lorentz's documentaries
for the Farm Security Administration--The River and The Plow That
Broke the Plains, and the photographs of Dorothea Lange and others.
Students can further investigate how the work of Lange, Agee, Evans, Lorentz,
and others reflected American conditions in the 1930s and evaluate their impact
on the New Deal. (A good Web site sponsored by the National Archives featuring
Depression-era artwork, interviews, etc. can be found at
http://www.nara.gov/exhall/newdeal/newdeal.html.)
- Compare and contrast other ways humans have affected the natural
landscape for survival and economic gain. Divide students into groups and have
each group study one of the following: strip mining, logging practices
including clear cutting, hydroelectric dams, clearing land in the rain forest
for farming and cattle ranching. Each group should research the following: what
are the short-term benefits vs. the long-term consequences; who wins, who
loses; in what ways has the practice changed and how did those changes come
about? Have each group develop a position paper, either supporting the practice
or suggesting how it could be modified, and a process for implementing any
change. How can they make their proposed changes attractive to the opposition?
How will they compensate for perceived losses? Is it possible to design a
win-win solution?
- To learn about some of the challenges facing farmers today, watch
Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern (see Web Site Archives) which documents
one family's battle to save their farm during the massive foreclosures of
family farms in the late '80s. What is similar and what is different about the
challenges modern farming families face and the ways they cope compared to Dust
Bowl-era farmers? How does the role of government compare?
- Agriculture involves reducing the diversity of a given ecosystem and
therefore must be heavily controlled in order for the system to remain stable.
A major change since the 1930s in farming has been the use of agrochemicals
(chemical pesticides and fertilizers). In fact, increases in grain production
over the past 40 years are attributable primarily to the use of chemical
fertilizers. How have changes in farming practices, such as the rise in
monocrop farming, encouraged farmers to turn to chemical fertilizers? What are
the benefits? What are the costs?
Educators & Librarians: You may order "Surviving the Dust Bowl" at PBS Video./B>
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