Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl

In the early 20th century, homesteaders converge on the southern Plains, where wet years, rising wheat prices and World War I produce a classic boom. Then, in 1931, a decade-long drought begins, exacerbated by the Great Depression. And just when it seems things could not get any worse, in 1935 the most catastrophic dust storm in history strikes on “Black Sunday.”

The crucible of dust, drought and Depression intensifies. Many people on the southern Plains give up and join a “migration of the defeated” to California. There they are branded as “Okies” and face vicious discrimination. Survivors recount their families’ desperate times, their joy at the rains’ return, and the lessons learned—and sometimes forgotten—from the Dust Bowl.