Product Description

In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains--the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl."

This American Experience film presents the remarkable story of the determined people who clung to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease--even death--for nearly a decade. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers who stayed overcame an almost unbelievable series of calamities and disasters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9470 in DVD
• Brand: WGBH HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2007-04-24
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 55 minutes

Features

• In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains--the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist tra

Customer Reviews

Almost essential for learning about the Dust Bowl and the Depression
A well produced television special on the Dust Bowl. Though somewhat incomplete in its depiction of the Dust Bowl, Surviving the Dust Bowl gives a very good over view of that drastic event in U.S. history. It works very well as a tool to give modern students a perspective on 1930s American history and its implications to present day. While it does seem to lack in-depth analysis, I don't think that should dissuade people, as there is only so much a producer can do in a 50 minute television program. The really good thing about it is the inclusion of people who were there and witnessed it. It goes well with The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan.

Surviving the Dust Bowl
It is well done. The first hand accounts with the historical footage give a clear understanding of this devastating time.

Dust Bowl
With the title, "Surviving the Dust Bowl," I was pleased to learn that 3/4 of the residents in that region stayed, something I never knew. However, I would have liked for this work to speak more about how to survive in a disaster area, how to make ends meet, and how to keep one's sanity.

The work is diverse in terms of gender. Because many Native Americans live in that region, I wish they could have been brought up. Did they stay because reservations aren't mobile? It's never stated. The work is a bit Eurocentric. Still, seeing female and male Dust Bowl survivors cry about their ordeal tugged at my heart. One interviewee probably had Parkinson's Disease. I wish this could have been stated because viewers unfamiliar with the malady may have thought the memories were causing her to shake that way.

This work is very focused on visuals. Yes, moving images had been around for three decades before the disaster, but still when someone says, "Dirt whirled a mile up," you could see it. When another person says, "All the livestock died," they show it. To the contrary, the work says farmers had to change their techniques and they don't really spell out what they did wrong and how they tried to improve. The narrator says the disaster could and did happen again, but no further facts are given.

Usually, geographic mobility is seen as a good think, or at least, geographic immobility is portrayed as being bad. So this documentary does flip the script in trying to positively portrayed people who stayed in harsh conditions. Seeing this also reminded me of Farm Aid concerts and how risky agricultural life can be.