Ken Burns is back with another great new documentary series for PBS - and it's one everyone who is a student of American history should see.
The Dust Bowl, a two-part, four-hour documentary series, will air Sunday and Monday nights on PBS (see below for local broadcast times).
The film takes us back to the time in the first half of the last century when land was cheap, new farm machinery made it easier and faster to convert grassland to farmland, but at great peril. When an unusually long wet weather period ended in the early 1930s, the drought and dust storms that followed destroyed the farmland in what is still heralded as the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history.
It is the story of what happened, the people affected - who found ways to survive - and the programs that helped develop new farming and conservation methods to prevent such a disaster from happening again.
It is also part oral history, as 26 survivors of those hard times speak to how the Dust Bowl affected them personally. You'll see written accounts, see previously unreleased films, and hear the music of the late Woody Guthrie, which is truly the soundtrack of its time.
THE DUST BOWL can be seen on the following area PBS stations starting Sunday night at 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET (unless noted otherwise below):
The Dust Bowl, a two-part, four-hour documentary series, will air Sunday and Monday nights on PBS (see below for local broadcast times).
The film takes us back to the time in the first half of the last century when land was cheap, new farm machinery made it easier and faster to convert grassland to farmland, but at great peril. When an unusually long wet weather period ended in the early 1930s, the drought and dust storms that followed destroyed the farmland in what is still heralded as the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history.
It is the story of what happened, the people affected - who found ways to survive - and the programs that helped develop new farming and conservation methods to prevent such a disaster from happening again.
It is also part oral history, as 26 survivors of those hard times speak to how the Dust Bowl affected them personally. You'll see written accounts, see previously unreleased films, and hear the music of the late Woody Guthrie, which is truly the soundtrack of its time.
THE DUST BOWL can be seen on the following area PBS stations starting Sunday night at 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET (unless noted otherwise below):
- WSIU 8.1
- WUSI 16.1
- WNIN 9.1
- WVUT 22.1
- KET
Consult your local station's listings for additional later airings.
