The Dust Bowl

A few days after Black Sunday, the remnants of the monstrous storm blow into Washington, DC., where Hugh Hammond Bennett, a soil scientist, aide to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of the film's historical characters, uses the blackened skies to persuade Congress to establish the Soil Conservation Service. A series of government programs attempt to rescue the increasingly desperate inhabitants of the Dust Bowl, many in a state of semi-starvation. Survivors recount stories of eating thistles, and of earning just enough money to get by working for the WPA, NYA and other New Deal programs.