The Dust Bowl Research Paper

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Gina Lee (Jiyoung) Robert Larson U.S History 11B 17 April 2015 There’s More Than One Reason? As devastating as the Great Depression was, think about having to face an agricultural crisis at the same time. During the early 1900’s, one of the most unimaginable events took place as a severe drought mopped up the mid-sections of America- A calamity caused by what we know as “The Dust Bowl.” Was the reason for this tragedy purely to be blamed on the poor environmental conditions of the time? Or were there other reasons?- It turns out the reasons for this problem actually varied. The problems weren’t purely caused by the environmental factors, but they were also caused by the lack of care, poor farming practices, poor environmental education,…show more content…
This area included “Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas” (“Dust Bowl”). The Dust Bowl was given it’s name due to the catastrophic dust storms produced by the people during this time. The renown movie by Christopher Nolan, Interstellar, well depicts this historical disaster. While many people do not realize the significance behind the making of Interstellar, Ken Burns, the author of the documentary, The Dust Bowl, has stated the connection he had with the movie’s production. In an interview by Washington Post, Burns had talked about his “documentary and the very real American dust bowl of the 1930s” (“How Ken Burns’”). He continued by saying “that dust bowl was largely a manmade ecological disaster, brought on by plowing too much of the prairies” (“How Ken Burns’”). The ties between his documentary and Nolan’s Interstellar come from the beginning of the movie where numerous tractors are shown plowing the already heavily plowed lands and sand storms are shown sweeping across the wheat fields. These sections of the movie were all extracted from the documentary. The adaption of the documentary into an awarding winning movie has lead Burns to laud Nolan for “including the voices of the Dust Bowl survivors” (“How Ken Burns’”) and doing “his own part to preserve their testimony” (“How Ken

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