USA: Dust Bowl
Series
- Series Name
- The March of Time 3rd Year
Issue
Story
- Story No. within this Issue
- 3 / 3
- Summary
- Monthly Film Bulletin synopsis: During this year alone, 10,000 American grain farmers in the ten states have been forced to abandon their lands by a contagious and deadly natural blight erosion of the soil by wind due to overplanting and neglect. In Texas, the hardest-hit area, Publisher John L. McCarty was scoffed at four years ago for predicting this calamity. To-day destitute families are migrating from the Dust Bowl. McCarty, alarmed at the wholesale evacuation, organises a "Last Man’s Club" and advertises the tragedy on the front pages of his newspaper. National interest is aroused and Dalhart, in Texas, has become the first testing ground for a huge new Federal project - the reclamation of the Dust Bowl. Experts of the Department of Agriculture construct reservoirs to conserve the region’s scanty rainfall; they terrace partially damaged land, and level eroded areas so that what little humus remains in drifting dunes may mix with the subsoil. Turf and young trees are planted, as well as new vegetation produced by scientific strip planting. But to-day, the third year of the reclamation work, new dust storms are sweeping over Dalhart, and it is doubtful when, if ever, the Dust Bowl will be reclaimed.
- Researcher Comments
- This story was included in Vol.3 No.11 of the US edition.
- Keywords
- Agriculture; Social conditions
- Written sources
- Monthly Film Bulletin Vol.4 No.44 31 August 1937, p162. Used for synopsis
- Credits:
-
- Production Co.
- Time Inc.
How to cite this record
'USA: Dust Bowl', The March of Time 3rd Year Issue No. 3, 1937. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/newsonscreen/search/index.php/story/352169 (Accessed 31 Aug 2025)