People Who Survive: The Great Depression & The Dust Bowl 9/14/2017

The Stock Market Crash Stocks hit all-time highs in September of 1929 In October, stocks began to fall Black Tuesday —16.4 million shares sold, compared to average of 4 million This collapse of the stock market is known as the Great Crash The crash triggered a much wider, long term crisis known as the Great Depression The Depression lasted from 1929 to 1941 when America entered WWII

Great Crash

                                                            

The Dust Bowl The Great Plains region—N. & S. Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas Oklahoma and northern Texas Farmers plow the plains, eliminating the protective layer of grass Wheat replaces grass—tractors make it much easier Severe drought and high winds Layers of top soil blown away, leaving dunes of grit and sand

A Dust Storm in Eastern Colorado

A father and his two sons seek shelter from a dust storm

Sand covering a farm after a dust storm

An abandoned farm in Kansas.

A family trying to escape the dust bowl

“Dust Bowl Blues” Identify the details in the song that describe Guthrie’s experience. Interpret Guthrie’s message that he hopes to convey in the song.

I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues Dust Bowl Blues by Woody Guthrie I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues I just blowed in, and I'll blow back out again I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues But when the dust gets high, you can't even see the sky I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing And the wind so cold, boy, it nearly cut your water off I seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down I've seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down Buried my tractor six feet underground Well, it turned my farm into a pile of sand Yes, it turned my farm into a pile of sand I had to hit that road with a bottle in my hand

I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl When you get that dust pneumony, boy, it's time to go I had a gal, and she was young and sweet But a dust storm buried her sixteen hundred feet She was a good gal, long, tall and stout Yes, she was a good gal, long, tall and stout I had to get a steam shovel just to dig my darlin' out These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know Buried head over heels in the black old dust I had to pack up and go An' I just blowed in, an' I'll soon blow out again

“Dust Bowl Blues” Identify the details in the song that describe Guthrie’s experience. Interpret Guthrie’s message that he hopes to convey in the song.

First Impression: What do you notice first in the picture? What are people wearing? How are they posed? What do you think they are doing? What do you think they are thinking?

Who are the people in the photograph? What message do you think the photographer was trying to convey?

The photograph that has become known as "Migrant Mother" is one of a series of photographs that Dorothea Lange made of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in February or March of 1936 in Nipomo, California. In 1960, Lange gave this account of the experience:

“I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions…I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the..

.. surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean- to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it.” (From: Popular Photography, Feb. 1960).

Lange was hired by the federal government to make known the difficulties of sharecroppers, displaced families, and migrant workers.

These pictures provided many Americans with their only insight into the setting. In addition photographers took many pictures in hopes of having one be the right one to show the setting and context they wanted to present to viewers.

Does knowing this photograph was staged change the way you think about the picture? Was this photograph effective in telling people the truth about the plight of the migrants?

Response Paragraph Point This photograph is effective because shows (portrays, demonstrates, illustrates, depicts)_________. Evidence In the photograph, we see________. We also see_________. Explanation The _______ influences the viewer by ________. Link Although the photo was staged, the photo is effective in showing the __________.