What can be learned from photographs, songs, interviews and other archival documents from the Dust Bowl era?

After completing the lessons in this unit, students will be able to

• List problems ordinary Americans faced during the Great Depression.
• Cite examples of the attempts of the government and citizens to solve these problems.

Other Resources

Recommended reading from American Memory

• Stein, R. Conrad. The Great Depression. N.Y.: Children's Press, 1993.

Recommended reading from The New Deal Network

• Blassingame, Wyatt. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Four Times President. Garrard Pub. Co., 1966. (Grades 2-5)
• Cavanah, Francis. Triumphant Adventure: The Story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Rand McNally, 1964. (Grades 5-8)
• Epstein, Samuel, and Epstein, Beryl. The Picture Life of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Watts, 1968. (Grades 2-5)
• Faber, Doris. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Abelard Schuman, l975. (Grades 3-6)
• McKown, Robin. Roosevelt's America. Grosset & Dunlap, 1962. (Grades 5-8)
• Wise, William. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Putnam, 1967. (Grades 2-4)

Recommended reading from Women of the West Museum

• Friedrich, Elizabeth. Leah's Pony. Pennsylvania: Boyd's Mills Press, 1996. (Grades 3-5)
• Myers, Anna. Red-Dirt Jessie. New York: Walker and Co., 1992. (Grades 3-5)

Other recommended reading

• Guthrie, Woody. This Land Is Your Land. Illustrated by Kathy Jakobsen.
• Hunt, Irene. No Promises in the Wind. Berkley Pub. Group, 1981. (Reading level: Young Adult; Paperback, 223 pages; ISBN: 0425099695)
• Stanley, Jerry. Children of the Dust Bowl: The True Story of the School at Weedpatch Camp. 1993. (Reading level: Ages 9-12; Paperback, 85 pages)

Recommended video from The New Deal Network

• "Dust Bowl," 30 minutes. Del Mar, California: CRM/McGraw-Hill Films, McGraw-Hill Book Company. 714-453-5000 (offers for sale or rental)

Recommended video from The Library of Congress

• A Teacher's Guide to Folklife Resources for K-12 Classrooms. Prepared by Peter Bartis and Paddy Bowman, American Folklife Center. Washington: Library of Congress, 1994.
• A Tribute to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. Music Educators National Conference (MENC). Study guide by Will Schmid. Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 1991. (Materials are correlated with "A Vision Shared and the Original Vision" audiocassette, CD or video. Available from MENC, 1902 Association Dr., Reston, Va.)

Other recommended video

• John Ford's classic film of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath is widely available for rental. The video may also be available at your local public library.

• Review each lesson in this unit and select appropriate archival materials to use in class discussions—particularly for Lesson 1. Bookmark them, if possible; download and print out the selected documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Obtain background information on the Dust Bowl from the following sources, all available on American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment resource River of Song, unless otherwise noted:
  • The Drought
  • The Great Depression
  • Mass Exodus from the Plains
  • Timeline of the Dust Bowl
  • Encyclopedia Britannica, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website Internet Public Library
  • The Migrant Experience, available on the EDSITEment resource American Memory
• The Digital Classroom, available through EDSITEment, offers a series of worksheets for analyzing primary source documents, including written documents and photographs, that you may wish to use or adapt to help students in reviewing the materials presented in this unit.

• Activity 1. What Happened Here?
• Activity 2. What Was the Dust Bowl?
• Activity 3. Where Was the Dust Bowl?
• Activity 4. How Were People Affected by the Dust Bowl?
• Activity 5. What Did They Do?
• Activity 6. What Did the United States Government Do About the Dust Bowl?
• Activity 7. A Letter from the Dust Bowl

Activity 1. What Happened Here?

The destructive wind storms that hit the plains of the American West in the 1930s rank among the greatest natural disasters of all times. Because they occurred in the midst of the Great Depression, dealing with the dust storms was all the more difficult.

To introduce this activity, tell the students you are wondering whether the classroom needs a good clean up. Give them a chance to look for dust in the room. Do they think there is a potential "dust problem"? How bad could it get? If it were 10 times worse, how would it affect activities in the classroom? What if it were a hundred times worse? Could it ever get that bad? Worse?

Divide the class into small groups. Explain to students that historians learn a great deal from primary sources, records of events from participants and eyewitnesses (interviews, diaries, photographs, official documents and so on). Various archival primary source documents that paint a dramatic picture of the Dust Bowl are listed below in two equivalent sets. Use one set, both sets, or parts of both, as appropriate to your class. (Note: Some items are included in both sets.)

Distribute a set of documents, with captions, to each group, along with related questions, such as:

1. What was the Dust Bowl?
2. Where was the Dust Bowl?
3. How were people affected by the Dust Bowl?
4. What did the people who were affected by the Dust Bowl do?
5. What did the United States government do?

What can the students learn about the Dust Bowl — something that happened in the U.S. during the Great Depression of the 1930s — from these documents? Students should form hypotheses to answer the questions. Succeeding lessons in this unit will provide materials with answers to these questions; correct hypotheses can be shared with the class at that time.

Set 1

• Song Lyrics
  • "Some More Greenback Dollar"
    I don't want your little rag houses
    I don't want your navy beans
    All I want is a greenback dollar
    For to buy some gasoline.
    
    The scenery here is gettin' rusty
    I'll go further up the line
    Where the fields are green and purty
    It will satisfy my mind
    
    We don't want to be a burden
    On the people of this land
    We just want to earn our money
    And you people know we can.
    
    So goodbye my friends and neighbors
    We are on the tramp
    Many thanks to all officials
    Of this migratory camp.
    
    
  • "Sunny Cal"
    By Jack Bryant, Firebaugh, 1940
    (song also available in Real Audio format on the EDSITEment resource American Memory)
    
    You've all heard the story
    Of old Sunny Cal
    The place where it never rains
    They say it don't know how.
    
    They say, "Come on, you Okies,
    Work is easy found
    Bring along your cotton pack
    You can pick the whole year round.
    
    Get your money ever' night
    Spread your blanket on the ground
    It's always bright and warm
    You can sleep right on the ground."
    
    But listen to me Okies
    I came out here one day
    Spent all my money getting here
    Now I can't get away.
• Audio and Text
  • Interview about dust storms, sleet storms, and tall stories, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory
    • Part 1 of interview about dust storms, sleet storms, and tall stories
    • Part 2 of interview about dust storms, sleet storms, and tall stories
    (Note: These URLs link to the Real Audio-format version of the interview. Other audio formats are also available.)
• Photographs
  • Sand drift along fence. Dust Bowl, north of Dalhart, Texas (photograph by Dorothea Lange), available on the EDSITEment resource American Memory
  • Destitute Farm Family (Background Information), available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website The New Deal Network
  • Western Kansas Farm, available on The New Deal Network
  • "Years of Dust" by Ben Shahn, available on the EDSITEment resource The Digital Classroom
  • Farmers applying for drought relief, available on The New Deal Network
    • Image 1 of farmers applying for drought relief
    • Image 2 of farmers applying for drought relief
  • Farmers whose topsoil blew away joined the sod caravans of "Okies" on Route 66 to California, available on The New Deal Network

Set 2

• Song Lyrics
  • "I'd Rather Not Be on Relief"
    By Lester Hunter, Shafter, 1938
    (Note: The CIO is a labor union. The WPA is the Works Progress Administration, a United States government agency created in 1935 to provide paying jobs for unemployed workers.)
    
    We go around all dressed in rags
    While the rest of the world goes neat,
    And we have to be satisfied
    With half enough to eat.
    We have to live in lean-tos,
    Or else we live in a tent,
    For when we buy our bread and beans
    There's nothing left for rent.
    
    I'd rather not be on the rolls of relief,
    Or work on the W.P.A.,
    We'd rather work for the farmer
    If the farmer could raise the pay;
    Then the farmer could plant more cotton
    And he'd get more money for spuds,
    Instead of wearing patches,
    We'd dress up in new duds.
    
    From the east and west and north and south
    Like a swarm of bees we come;
    The migratory workers
    Are worse off than a bum.
    We go to Mr. Farmer
    And ask him what he'll pay;
    He says, "You gypsy workers
    Can live on a buck a day."
    
    We don't ask for luxuries
    Or even a feather bed.
    But we're bound to raise the dickens
    While our families are underfed.
    Now the winter is on us
    And the cotton picking is done,
    What are we going to live on
    While we're waiting for spuds to come?
    
    Now if you will excuse me
    I'll bring my song to an end.
    I've got to go and chuck a crack
    Where the howling wind comes in.
    The times are going to better
    And I guess you'd like to know
    I'll tell you all about it, I've joined the C. I. O.
    
    
  • "Why We Come to Californy"
    By Jack Bryant, Firebaugh, 1940
    (audio interview and poem read by the author also available in Real Audio format on the EDSITEment resource American Memory)
    
    You've all heard the story
    Of old Sunny Cal
    The place where it never rains
    They say it don't know how.
    
    They say, "Come on, you Okies,
    Work is easy found
    Bring along your cotton pack
    You can pick the whole year round.
    
    Get your money ever' night
    Spread your blanket on the ground
    It's always bright and warm
    You can sleep right on the ground."
    
    But listen to me Okies
    I came out here one day
    Spent all my money getting here
    Now I can't get away.
• Audio and Text
  • Interview about dust storms in Oklahoma, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory (Note: These URLs link to the Real Audio-format version of the interview. Other audio formats are also available.)
  (To listen to audio files, download Real Player)
• Photographs
  • Abandoned farm in the Dust Bowl. Coldwater District, near Dalhart, Texas (photograph by Dorothea Lange), available on the EDSITEment resource American Memory
  • Son of farmer in dust bowl area. Cimarron County, Oklahoma (photograph by Arthur Rothstein), available on American Memory
  • Abandoned house, Haskell County, Kansas (photograph by Irving Rusinow, April 1941), available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website The Digital Classroom
  • Years of Dust (painting by Ben Shahn), available on The Digital Classroom
  • Farmers applying for drought relief, available on the EDSITEment resource The New Deal Network
    • Image 1 of farmers applying for drought relief
    • Image 2 of farmers applying for drought relief
  • Farmers whose topsoil blew away joined the sod caravans of "Okies" on Route 66 to California, available on The New Deal Network

Activity 2. What Was the Dust Bowl?

Discuss the students' hypotheses about this question from Activity 1. Then share with the students a Basic Account of the Dust Bowl, available on Encarta, a link from the EDSITEment resource Internet Public Library.

Activity 3. Where Was the Dust Bowl?

Discuss the students' hypotheses about this question from Activity 1. Have students locate on a classroom map the states in the Dust Bowl region. Share with the class a Map of Dust Bowl, available on American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website River of Song.

Activity 4. How Were People Affected by the Dust Bowl?

Discuss the students' hypotheses about this question from Activity 1. Remind students of the previous discussion about dust in the classroom. Of course, the classroom often could use some sprucing up, but for people living in the Dust Bowl region, dealing with the dust and its ramifications became the center of everyday life.

Review material here such as Interview about dust storms in Oklahoma, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory (Audio File), and photographs like Abandoned farm in the Dust Bowl. Coldwater District, near Dalhart, Texas (photograph by Dorothea Lange), available on the EDSITEment resource American Memory, and Abandoned house, Haskell County, Kansas (photograph by Irving Rusinow, April 1941), available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website The Digital Classroom.

Activity 5. What Did They Do?

Discuss the students' hypotheses about this question from Activity 1.

Some people migrated.

• Flyer Publicizing a Need for Cotton Pickers, a poster available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory that encouraged farmers from the Dust Bowl region to migrate to the West.
  
  
• Photographs by Dorothea Lange, all available on American Memory
  • Eighteen-year-old mother from Oklahoma, now a California migrant
  • Migratory workers from Oklahoma washing in a hot spring in the desert
  • A drought refugee living in a camp on the bank of an irrigation ditch
  • The water supply in a squatter camp near Calipatria is an open settling basin fed by an irrigation ditch
• Lyrics from Woody Guthrie's "Dust Storm Disaster" (play a recording of the song, if available)

Some people received assistance from the government.

• This editorial cartoon Sure, I'll Try Anything Once!, available on the FDR Cartoon Archive, a link from the EDSITEment resource American Memory, shows not only a farmer accepting relief but also his reluctance to do so.

Some people simply did the best they could.

• An Eyewitness Account, available on American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment resource River of Song, features excerpts from the testimony of a witness, accompanied by photographs.
• Between the Wars: The Dust Bowl, a series of brief diary excerpts available via a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website History Matters

For more in-depth information, a complete transcript of PBS interviews with witnesses to the Dust Bowl is available on American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment resource River of Song.

Activity 6. What Did the United States Government Do About the Dust Bowl?

Discuss the students' hypotheses about this question from Activity 1. Use the Timeline of the Dust Bowl, available on American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment resource River of Song, in your discussion of events related to the Dust Bowl. The timeline emphasizes actions taken by the government to provide relief to victims of the Dust Bowl.

The government worked to improve the agricultural practices of those in the affected areas. The poster "Plains farms need trees: Trees prevent wind erosion, save moisture ... protect crops, contribute to human comfort and happiness" was part of a campaign to improve farming practices (search for the poster by its exact title on the EDSITEment resource American Memory).

The government also provided direct relief to farmers, gave work to the unemployed on government projects, and helped improve conditions for migrants. The following photographs, all available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website The New Deal Network, illustrate these actions.

• Farmers Applying for Drought Relief
• Worker Receiving WPA Paycheck
• A Group of Refugees Are Fed in an Emergency WPA Kitchen
• Dolls Made by the WPA
• General View of a Migrant Worker Camp of the Farm Security Administration
• Page from a WPA Handbook Summarizing Works Projects
• WPA Sponsored Class

Activity 7. A Letter from the Dust Bowl

Letter writing was a more important pastime before the telephone became ubiquitous and before e-mail and other innovations provided other avenues of communication. Share with the class the Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt from a Dust Bowl sufferer, a letter from a 13-year-old boy, available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website The New Deal Network. Note that the letter is written in dialect and that the spelling and grammar are often incorrect. Nevertheless, the desperate situation of the writer is communicated.

Have each student write a letter from the point of view of someone involved in the Dust Bowl. Students could be assigned or choose to write as one of the following (students also may have some ideas of their own):

• A farmer in the Dust Bowl region
• A government official who has been sent to investigate conditions
• A child who just found out his/her family has decided to migrate to California
• Someone living in a migrant labor camp in California
• Mrs. Roosevelt writing back to the letter writer above
• A gas station owner on Route 66, as the migrants stream past
• A California citizen living near the places where the migrants are arriving

Letters should include some facts the students have learned about the Dust Bowl. Give the students the opportunity to share their letters either by reading them aloud or posting them on the bulletin board. The EDSITEment lesson I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Someone a Letter provides additional information and activities on letter writing.

• Students may wish to research important people from the Great Depression era. Below are some EDSITEment reviewed sources of information on key figures:
  
  Woody Guthrie
  • Woody Guthrie: Dust Bowl Balladeer, available on American Studies at the University of Virginia, a link from the EDSITEment resource Center for the Liberal Arts
  • Woody Guthrie at Bonneville Dam, available on American Memory
  • Clip of Guthrie singing "Dust Bowl Pneumonia" and talking about his experiences, available on Between the Wars: The Dust Bowl, a link from the EDSITEment resource History Matters
  Dorothea Lange
  • Migrant Workers: Photographer: Dorothea Lange, available on American Memory
  Eleanor Roosevelt
  • Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, available on the EDSITEment resource The American President
  • Eleanor Roosevelt bio at the FDR Presidential Library, a link from The Digital Classroom
  • The New Deal Network
  Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt, available on American Experience, a link from the EDSITEment resource River of Song
  • FDR in Brief, available on the EDSITEment resource The American President
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, available on the FDR Presidential Library, a link from The Digital Classroom
  • The New Deal Network
• Students could create a multimedia presentation about the Dust Bowl. For example, a transcript such as Interview of a Migrant, available on the EDSITEment resource The New Deal Network, could serve as the basis for a dramatic reading. Expand the performance with photographs and songs from the era, such as those by Woody Guthrie.
• The Great Depression was a central event in the lives of many who lived through that era. Many such individuals live in your community. Students could conduct an oral history project similar to that conducted by an eleventh-grade class — We Made Do: Recalling the Depression, available through the EDSITEment-reviewed website The New Deal Network.
• Farming practices that worked well in different regions did not work well on the Plains. The farming practices during that time — over-plowing and over-grazing, combined with the droughts occurring between 1931 and 1939 — were partly responsible for the environmental catastrophe that created the Dust Bowl. The following EDSITEment resources offer more in-depth information on agricultural practices:
  
  From American Experience, a link from River of Song
  • Hugh Hammond Bennett -- A brief biography of an advocate in the Roosevelt Administration for soil conservation.
  • Bam White -- A profile of the unlikely star of a documentary on farming practices in the Dust Bowl region.
• For further information, contact a Soils Conservationist or Extension Agent. This "subject matter expert" could visit the class or serve as a resource for students.