Ken Burns is such an inspiration, bringing history to life the way he does...and the love and compassion he feels for his subjects. I'd love to meet him... I could learn so much!
I'm the granddaughter of people who survived through this in NW Oklahoma. I inherited the spirit and faith and just plain stubbornness of these people who took a licking and kept on going the next day. It was well that I did. I needed it. --- a farmer's wife NE Oklahoma.
We need people like you! Sadly, folks today can’t appreciate that fact. Our government needs tons of strong minded types not apt to compromise on important issues.
The Dust Bowl documentary is my Number one favorite along with Death of a Dream, the Titanic documentary. As a documentary nerd I have seen many, some better than others. However, these two in particular are simply fascinating from start to finish. Anything Ken Burns does is top shelf. Btw: my mother in law lived in Texas during that time. She spoke about the terrible dust storms. My wife and I wish we had paid more attention to her particular experience. My father in law talked about it happening here in Southeast Kentucky.
This is great information that I don't remember learning in school. This is also a wonderful example to remind us in 2021 how fortunate we are (and also how spoiled we are). I am amazed that people were able to endure this era.
of course not, its so not American to learn history. Otherwise the genocide of the FIRST NATIONS would be a topic 😂 will never happen to the country that is always right....so sad
Last year I bought an old farm in northern Minnesota that the field hasn't been plowed since the 1950s. The previous farmer used all the wrong agricultural practices than ruined the land during that time - not unlike what we saw in Ken Burns' film. I have old aero photos of my property from 1939, and it was a moonscape of a land in pain. I'm bringing this land back to life using conservation methods and 'no-till' farming to preserve the land and to benefit the wildlife in the area. I will always keep in mind that this land can be ruined very quickly and will use every effort to protect it for my children. Thanks Ken for your film. :)
I feel homesteading was just a footnote in our NY history text books. Thank goodness for PBS and Ken Burns 🙌🏾 This is insane! 1. Forcing Native Americans off the land 2. Over farming and contributing to a DECADE long dust storm 3. Recovering to drain the ground water and likely contribute to a future ecological issue
My Grandma was from Oklahoma, in fact her grandfather was the only doctor to the Indian Nations during his lifetime, and she got teary eyed every time the dust bowl was brought up. She came to Missouri and married . She could make the oldest squirrel taste good, rabbit, and pigeon. They lived across the street from a park and Grandma would give soup to the hobos passing through. She never got over being hungry and always had food in the house ready for anyone who came to visit.
Those folks had so much to tell and teach US. I always enjoyed listening to older folks talk about theirs farms, families, their lives. If only we would learn!
My mother was born in 1921. Although she lived in eastern Illinois, she remembered the huge dust clouds that rolled over in '34 and '35. My dad was a CCC tree planter in '36 and '37, but he died before I could ask him the million questions I have today. Tim Egan's book "The Worst Hard Times" is a wonderful book about this era with many of his interviews with these same people.
Dad died in May '63, shortly before my 13th birthday. He tried to tell me about the Depression and the CCC, but I wasn't interested. I regret it to this day. I knew better with Mom and other relatives, I got a lot of their stories.
indy_go_blue60, I think this is why I switched careers from my office job to growing heirloom tomatoes. I drive a snow plow in the winter. I plan on bring my tomatoes to the farmer’s markets next year. I think I owe it to the young folks to figure out more sustainable food sources. We must avoid the past at all costs. I must say, I’m fortunate to live in Ontario and we’ve got a lot of forest... not so much prairie land.
It's not love for the plains that makes you stay or brings you back. it's that the land has something in common with my soul: it's haunted by the death of many dreams. the high plains gave me a taste for the hurt, therefore, I can never leave. I'm doomed to wander that flat windy dirt because it's inside me. even if I leave, it's in me. calling me back. there is no reward for sticking it out. those who don't leave were broken after the first storms blew, and they didn't have enough heart left to try and leave.
Big fan of Ken and his works. Great contribution to the people of this world. Stories like these are much more inspiring than Alexander or Napolean or Ghengis conquering the world.
Horribly horrifying, my grandma, dwelled on this in her old age. She talked about a neighbor's grandma, who got caught in the out house, during a dust storm, next day she was dead tangled up in a barbwire fence, half buried in dust.
I’ve been in one sandstorm in my life, age 11, Arches National Monument, Utah, 1967. Our RV trailer was rocking so bad Dad went outside with a wet pillowcase on his head, a rope tied around his upper arm attached to the door handle. He hitched the trailer to the car, blind, while we cowered on the floor, getting covered in red sand. And it was a few hours one night. Living this way for a decade? I can’t imagine it.
I think the consensus is that some of farming practices leading up to the 1930's probably contributed to the conditions experienced during the dust bowl. However, I'm also pretty sure that farming practices did not cause the severe droughts experienced in the US at that time (the worst droughts in US history). Much of those drought conditions were experienced over 80% of the US, and the mid-west, where the dust bowl occurred, only made up a very small portion of that. All of this is a part of the natural climate cycle that has been going on for millennia.
According to another documentary on this topic, the high level winds that normally carry humidity up from the gulf were diverted when it heated up and instead of going up into the plains went on west across Mexico.
The people being interviewed the first 2 1/2 minutes were actually born in the mid 21st century when people were living on farms and subsisting on corn and by the early to mid part of the 22nd century they were living on space stations because Earth was no longer habitable. Thanks to an astronaut that sent his daughter the gravity equation out of a black hole through a wristwatch that launched the space stations and got these people to safety!
Lesson to learn from the dust bowl is that no country is safe from tragedy and unexpected events. Idk why we don’t have a grain and water supplies all over the The USA when stuff like this occurs so at least we’ll be prepared when famine and crazy stuff hits
Ken Burns is such an inspiration, bringing history to life the way he does...and the love and compassion he feels for his subjects. I'd love to meet him... I could learn so much!
Gotta love Ken Burns Documentaries
I'm the granddaughter of people who survived through this in NW Oklahoma. I inherited the spirit and faith and just plain stubbornness of these people who took a licking and kept on going the next day. It was well that I did. I needed it. --- a farmer's wife NE Oklahoma.
We need people like you! Sadly, folks today can’t appreciate that fact. Our government needs tons of strong minded types not apt to compromise on important issues.
The Dust Bowl documentary is my Number one favorite along with Death of a Dream, the Titanic documentary. As a documentary nerd I have seen many, some better than others. However, these two in particular are simply fascinating from start to finish. Anything Ken Burns does is top shelf. Btw: my mother in law lived in Texas during that time. She spoke about the terrible dust storms. My wife and I wish we had paid more attention to her particular experience. My father in law talked about it happening here in Southeast Kentucky.
This is great information that I don't remember learning in school. This is also a wonderful example to remind us in 2021 how fortunate we are (and also how spoiled we are). I am amazed that people were able to endure this era.
of course not, its so not American to learn history. Otherwise the genocide of the FIRST NATIONS would be a topic 😂 will never happen to the country that is always right....so sad
Last year I bought an old farm in northern Minnesota that the field hasn't been plowed since the 1950s. The previous farmer used all the wrong agricultural practices than ruined the land during that time - not unlike what we saw in Ken Burns' film. I have old aero photos of my property from 1939, and it was a moonscape of a land in pain.
I'm bringing this land back to life using conservation methods and 'no-till' farming to preserve the land and to benefit the wildlife in the area. I will always keep in mind that this land can be ruined very quickly and will use every effort to protect it for my children.
Thanks Ken for your film. :)
I feel homesteading was just a footnote in our NY history text books. Thank goodness for PBS and Ken Burns 🙌🏾
This is insane!
1. Forcing Native Americans off the land
2. Over farming and contributing to a DECADE long dust storm
3. Recovering to drain the ground water and likely contribute to a future ecological issue
My Grandma was from Oklahoma, in fact her grandfather was the only doctor to the Indian Nations during his lifetime, and she got teary eyed every time the dust bowl was brought up. She came to Missouri and married . She could make the oldest squirrel taste good, rabbit, and pigeon. They lived across the street from a park and Grandma would give soup to the hobos passing through. She never got over being hungry and always had food in the house ready for anyone who came to visit.
Those folks had so much to tell and teach US. I always enjoyed listening to older folks talk about theirs farms, families, their lives. If only we would learn!
if only grandfather would have listened to his patients....
My mother was born in 1921. Although she lived in eastern Illinois, she remembered the huge dust clouds that rolled over in '34 and '35. My dad was a CCC tree planter in '36 and '37, but he died before I could ask him the million questions I have today. Tim Egan's book "The Worst Hard Times" is a wonderful book about this era with many of his interviews with these same people.
Dad died in May '63, shortly before my 13th birthday. He tried to tell me about the Depression and the CCC, but I wasn't interested. I regret it to this day. I knew better with Mom and other relatives, I got a lot of their stories.
indy_go_blue60 it reached new York
I've read that ships 100 miles out to sea had as much as an inch of dust on their decks
indy_go_blue60, I think this is why I switched careers from my office job to growing heirloom tomatoes. I drive a snow plow in the winter. I plan on bring my tomatoes to the farmer’s markets next year. I think I owe it to the young folks to figure out more sustainable food sources. We must avoid the past at all costs. I must say, I’m fortunate to live in Ontario and we’ve got a lot of forest... not so much prairie land.
It's not love for the plains that makes you stay or brings you back. it's that the land has something in common with my soul: it's haunted by the death of many dreams. the high plains gave me a taste for the hurt, therefore, I can never leave. I'm doomed to wander that flat windy dirt because it's inside me. even if I leave, it's in me. calling me back. there is no reward for sticking it out. those who don't leave were broken after the first storms blew, and they didn't have enough heart left to try and leave.
Big fan of Ken and his works. Great contribution to the people of this world. Stories like these are much more inspiring than Alexander or Napolean or Ghengis conquering the world.
Another great documentary by a great documentary maker.
Ken is my favorite too.
Absolutely
Horribly horrifying, my grandma, dwelled on this in her old age. She talked about a neighbor's grandma, who got caught in the out house, during a dust storm, next day she was dead tangled up in a barbwire fence, half buried in dust.
Trauma will do that.
I’ve been in one sandstorm in my life, age 11, Arches National Monument, Utah, 1967. Our RV trailer was rocking so bad Dad went outside with a wet pillowcase on his head, a rope tied around his upper arm attached to the door handle. He hitched the trailer to the car, blind, while we cowered on the floor, getting covered in red sand. And it was a few hours one night. Living this way for a decade? I can’t imagine it.
I think the consensus is that some of farming practices leading up to the 1930's probably contributed to the conditions experienced during the dust bowl. However, I'm also pretty sure that farming practices did not cause the severe droughts experienced in the US at that time (the worst droughts in US history). Much of those drought conditions were experienced over 80% of the US, and the mid-west, where the dust bowl occurred, only made up a very small portion of that. All of this is a part of the natural climate cycle that has been going on for millennia.
According to another documentary on this topic, the high level winds that normally carry humidity up from the gulf were diverted when it heated up and instead of going up into the plains went on west across Mexico.
Remember: In It's A Wonderful Life, Evil old Mr. Potter keeps the money. No arrest. No incrimination.
thanks for the link ;)
Peter Coyote is giving Morgan Freeman a run for his money.
Of Mice and Men
"Encouraged by their government". Makes one wonder what the government policies on climate change will cause...
Man, I thought the interviewer was Kellyanne Conway at first!
NJ
Why did they not know farming practices? Come on, even George Washington knew that.
The people being interviewed the first 2 1/2 minutes were actually born in the mid 21st century when people were living on farms and subsisting on corn and by the early to mid part of the 22nd century they were living on space stations because Earth was no longer habitable. Thanks to an astronaut that sent his daughter the gravity equation out of a black hole through a wristwatch that launched the space stations and got these people to safety!
+Anna Wesson Etters the movie Interstellar used footage of these people interviewed at the beginning and end
that movie was shit. corn won't grow without irrigation. total bullshit
@@JulietsMan Corn has been so GMO'd it won't grow without a ton of fertilizer and pesticide per acre and 70% of it is used to make ethanol.
You’re interesting. Follow the directions for use on your medication bottle.
Lambert
yup
Propaganda. Teaching us the history they want everyone to believe.
Lesson to learn from the dust bowl is that no country is safe from tragedy and unexpected events.
Idk why we don’t have a grain and water supplies all over the The USA when stuff like this occurs so at least we’ll be prepared when famine and crazy stuff hits
Man, I thought the interviewer was Kellyanne Conway at first!