The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl > Dust Storm The Dust Bowl > Dust Storm. A wall of dirt and sand descends upon Spearman, Texas, on August 14, 1935 Dust Storm. A wall of dirt and sand descends upon Spearman, Texas, on August 14, 1935. Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. February 1936.

The Dust Bowl > Dust Storm Approaching Startford, Texas, 1930s I n the 1930s, New Deal-era federal government set up relief agencies to help victims of natural and economic disasters, including residents of the “Dust Bowl” area of the Great Plains which was devastated by dust storms during the Great Depression.

The Dust Bowl > Pare Lorenz, The Plow That Broke the Plains, 1936 Pare Lorentz’s 1936 government-sponsored documentary film had an enormous influence on filmmakers and photographers of his generation. These excerpts from the film give some sense of what the dust storms were like, as well as establishing Lorentz’s major influence on the 1930s documentary aesthetic.

The Dust Bowl > Map of Erosion and Dust on the Plains This map depicts the general area of the 1930s Dust Bowl.

Migration > Traveling from South Texas to the Arkansas Delta, 1936 Traveling to the Arkansas Delta to pick cotton, members of a South Texas family were photographed by the Farm Security Administration’s Dorothea Lange in August 1936. Dorothea Lange, 1936—Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Migration > On the road to California, February 1936 On the road. Their worldly possessions piled on two rundown vehicles, a migrant family pauses en route to California in February 1936. Dorothea Lange, 1936-Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Migration > John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Novel published in 1939 Film in 1940 (closely follows the novel) Reinforced the belief that migrants fled the dust storms In fact, they fled for varied reasons, including drought, falling agricultural prices, and mechanization of agriculture 16,000 farmers fled dust storms 400,000 migrated, from a larger area in the Southwest Famous scene: farmer confronts a man who is about to level his house, used the plight of farmers to convey a sense of unfocused outrage shared by many others during the Depression - people couldn’t figure out who was to blame for the disaster

FSA > Arthur Rothstein, Steer Skull, Pennington County, South Dakota 1936 Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

FSA > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull on dry sun-baked earth The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands. May 1936 Another image of the same skull, now in a different location. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

FSA > Arthur Rothstein, the same skull, cows grazing in the background The same skull in a third place in Pennington County. Conservative critics of the New Deal pointed out that although the skull conveyed a sense of desolation, in fact cows grazed happily a few hundred yards away. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

FSA > Arthur Rothstein, Farmers and Sons, Cimmaron County, Oklahoma, 1936 (after the dust storm) Farmer and Sons, Cimmarron County, Oklahoma, 1936. This image of a farmer digging out after a dust storm was taken on the same day as the next image, which purports to show a dust storm in progress. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

FSA > Arthur Rothstein, the same farmer pretending to flee a dust storm Fleeing a Dust Storm, Cimmarron County Oklahoma, 1936. Rothstein posed this image, asking the farmer and his children to walk by several times and suggesting ways they could pose their arms. There was no such storm that day. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

FSA > Arthur Rothstein, the same farmer pretending to flee a dust storm Fleeing a Dust Storm, Cimmarron County Oklahoma, 1936. Rothstein posed this image, asking the farmer and his children to walk by several times and suggesting ways they could pose their arms. There was no such storm that day. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

FSA > Walker Evans, Burroughs Photographs, Hale County, Alabama, 1936 Floyd Burroughs (George Gudger), Hale County, Alabama, 1936. This photograph was not published, perhaps because Evans felt the hint of a smile on Burroughs's face projected too much confidence.

FSA > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, March 1936 One of the most enduring images of the Depression is a portrait of a woman and her children in a California migrant labor camp. Taken by FSA photographer Dorothea Lange, it was the last of a series of six photographs that Lange shot on a rainy afternoon in March 1936.

FSA > Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother series, March 1936