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The Great Plow-Up

Season 1 Episode 1 | 1hr 55m 15s

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.

Aired: 11/17/12
Funding is provided by Bank of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, National Endowment for the Humanities, The Rockefeller Foundation, Wallace Genetic Foundation and members of The Better Angels Society, including the Dana A. Hamel Family Charitable Trust and Robert and Beverly Grappone.
Extras
The storms and the Great Depression continued.
Experience the conservation efforts to bring farms back to life
Modern machinery made wheat farming more efficient and profitable.
Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan, Julie Dunfey and Susan Shumaker talk about making The Dust Bowl.
With the dust storms, midday turned into midnight.
Those caught in the dust thought the end of the world was upon them.
Feel the full force of the worst manmade environmental disaster in America’s history.
FDR tours the Dust Bowl.
The dust storms were so severe they could suffocate those trapped out of doors.
The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history
Latest Episodes
The storms and the Great Depression continued.