Taylor Hunt

Jansen
2/4/11
1
Film or Documentary Write-up
Film Analysis (clearly describe the significance of the film in regards to our study of the Great
Depression)
Title Year Rating Genre
Key Info
Surviving the Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl – dead, dry land on the great plains in the 1930s – had horrible
effects on all people who experienced it. Everyone in the area was affected:
adults, children, men, and women. Men, the people who did most of the work in
the fields, were severely affected by the Dust Bowl. They could no longer yield
anything from their fields. Men worked from dawn to dusk, trying to coax the fields
to produce anything, but it was all dead. As the video states: “Where grain once
grew high as a man’s shoulder, dazed farmers walked out over their beaten,
blown-out fields.” They took up other labor jobs, many from the government, which
were very hard and paid very little. As Melt White recalled of his father: “Dad he’d
get up in the mornin’ and feed the horses and harness the team, hitch 'em, and go
to work. And, ah, work for the WPA. Drove the team. He got a dollar-and-thirty-
five-cents a day, him, team, and wagon. And, ah, that was — that was it.” The
Identify and dust storms and hard way of life was horrible for the women as well. In the movie,
describe key Clella Schmidt talked about finding a hysterical lady during a dust storm: “My dad
groups of thought that we should stop and pick up this neighbor and her baby and it hit just
people about the time we were getting out of the car to go into the house. And this
identified in woman was hysterical. She was she thought she should maybe just go ahead and
the kill the baby and herself because it was the end of the world and she didn’t want
documentary to face it alone.” The dust storms were both mental and physical torture – this
(At least 3 women even thought she would die. Kids were affected by the Dust Bowl as well.
groups In Ford Country, Kansas (1935), one in three deaths were from pneumonia from
minimum the dust, and children were especially vulnerable. J.R. Davison recalls about his
effected by childhood: “I guess I was sicker than I ever realized, because I got, ah delirious. I
the Dust Bowl was out of my head. I can see, to this day, those merry go round horses coming
either positive out of the ceiling, you know? They’d just, like this, just like a merry go horse —
or negative.) round horse goes. And I’d say, mom? She was always there by my bed, seemed
like. I’d say, mom? Those horses are gonna hit you, said, you better move your
head.” Overall, the Dust Bowl was a negative time period for almost all families:
“But I’ll tell you, they were gaunt, tired-looking people. I felt very sorry for 'em. The
whole family, the wife, the kids and the husband, they were tired-lookin’ people,
people that you could see felt rather hopeless.” Many families decided to leave all
their possessions and find a better life. “Dust Bowlers watched as their neighbors
and friends picked up and headed west in search of farm jobs in California.
Having packed their meager belongings, they did not even bother to shut the door
behind them — they just drove away, their eyes fixed on the uncertain road before
them.” Although these people may have been attacked for losing patience or
ditching their community, the Dust Bowl had worn on them so much they decided
to leave. The Dust Bowl was horrible for everyone involved.
 Surviving the Dust Bowl gives a great insight into many of the pains of the Great
Depression. The film starts out by talking about the farm industry's over-
extension, a common theme in the onset of the Great Depression. J.R. Davison
recalls the intensity people farmed with: “So everybody got him a John Deere
tractor or an old International and really went to plowin’ this country and my dad
was no different than the rest of 'em. You know, he’d run that thing all day and
when the sun went down, why, he’d come in and do the chores and I’d go runnin’
that tractor 'til morning.” As people continued to farm relentlessly, the quality of
land fell rapidly: “It produced good. It looked like the greatest thing would never
end. So they abused the land. They abused it somethin’ terrible. They raped it.
They got everything out they could. And we don’t think. We don’t think. Except for
ourselves and it comes down to greed. We’re selfish and we want what we want
and we don’t even think of what the end results might be.” The Great Depression
seemed to stem greatly from this mentality. People bought things on credit that
they couldn't afford. They invested whimsically in the stock market, and generally
Key Movie lived an unsustainable lifestyle. Eventually, everything fell apart. By relentlessly
Events farming and never switching crops or letting a field sit, farmers destroyed all
(Describe at minerals and nutrients in the top-soil of the great planes, leaving nothing but dust.
least 5 items Rather than just passing harmlessly by, the high winds started to pick up massive
discussed in amounts of dirt and dust, creating a black hell for anyone within. “As dust
the film that enveloped the atmosphere, it got into the eyes, the nose, the mouth — breathing
helped the became difficult. […] It had taken a thousand years to build an inch of topsoil on
Dust Bowl be the Southern Plains. It took only minutes for one good blow to sweep it all away.”
a major cause Next, we see how people try to cope with the lack of crops and horrible dust.
of the Great Many people left, while others stayed in an attempt to hold on to their property and
Depression) familiar life. Methods of coping with the new way of life are a significant part of the
Depression. Many men had to get jobs to supplement or replace the income they
once made from their own fields. “The parched land refused to yield a decent
living. The proud settlers of the Plains were becoming dependent on government
work projects for survival.” The idea of government action is also a key point
related to the Great Depression. The government started to sponsor jobs for
farmers in order to help people survive. The government program to educate
farmers on proper farming and conservation techniques was also essential.
These types are initiatives are closely related to the New Deal. People needed
some way to continue living, and the government helped provide that (although
the work paid very poorly). “For years — before the dust storms — the Federal
government had regarded the soil as a limitless, indestructible resource. In a
major shift, Washington now put its full weight and authority behind soil
conservation. To promote the new message, the administration produced a
provocative film about the causes of the Dust Bowl.” The government stepped up
in a very necessary time to educate people on what went wrong and how to fix it.
 The Dust Bowl was a product of human mistake. Whatever the problem, whether
greed, obliviousness, or anything else, the Dust Bowl didn't create itself. People
may have been too ambitious in their farming, and didn't have the foresight to see
the problems they were creating. This mentality is characteristic of the Great
Depression. People spent what they didn't have, invested foolishly, and lived
beyond their means. They dug themselves into a hole they couldn't easily climb
out of. The documentary also alluded to the stubbornness or dedication of
Reaction/ farmers of this time period. Although the conditions in the Dust Bole were almost
Reflection unlivable, three fourths of all farmers and their families stayed. This may have
On the stemmed from many emotions: fear of a new future, attachment to the land they
documentary had worked so hard, positive outlook, etc. Whatever the mental reasoning, a
(Discuss 5 ridiculous amount of farmers stayed put through the adversity of the Dust Bowl.
things about This documentary subtly and indirectly taught about the importance of proper
the Dust Bowl farming methods. If crops aren't switched and fields are over-farmed, all nutrients
you learned in will be pulled from the ground and nothing will grow. The film also mentioned how
viewing this temporary prosperity tricked the farmers. “In 1931, there was no better place to
documentary) be a farmer than the Southern Plains. The rest of the nation was in the grip of the
Great Depression, but in wheat country they were reaping a record-breaking crop.
Plains farmers had turned untamed prairie into one of the most prosperous
regions in the country. […] With the outbreak of WWI, Washington wanted wheat
— wheat would win the war! With record high prices, the promise of the land was
coming true. Millions of acres of grassland would feel the plow for the first time.
The race was on to turn every inch of the Southern Plains into profit.” This sense
of endless profitability led the farmers to over-extend the land.
This is very similar to everything previously stated, but the Great Depression
came from accepted excess. Everyone overspent and over-farmed. Debt was
How does this
piled up, and when the economy tanked, most people couldn't make their
film enrich
payments. This sent the economy further into the tank. It was this seemingly
the
endless spiral that caught everyone off guard and made the Depression what it
information
was. The Dust Bowl showed this same pattern. Prosperity taught farmers to take
you have
advantage of the land and work it to its maximum. Fields were plowed day and
already
night; Golden wheat meant “gold” in the pockets of the farmers. When fields
studied on
started to become unresponsive to farmers' work, they only pushed it harder.
the Great
More and more planting led to less and less crop yield. This spiral made the Dust
Depression?
Bowl as bad as it was. The parallels between the specific case of the Dust Bowl
and the general time period of depression are apparent and very related.