The Dust Bowl: An Illustrated History

This book does an excellent job of describing both the hope of a better life and the crushing agony of defeat of the pioneers. The photographs enhance the hopelessness of the people. My only complaint is that the book followed the same script as the PBS series. Having read previous books on the dust bowl, I learned nothing knew.

Having watched the entire four-hours of the associated DVD, I couldn't pass the opportunity to look at this book. As stated by Burns, it covers an epic of human pain and suffering when normally self-reliant men found themselves unable to provide for their families, and the most vigilant mothers also unable to keep dirt from invading their houses and killing their children. Thousands were forced to leave their houses, unable to withstand the 'black blizzard' dust storms that came, on average, every three days, repeatedly establishing that man was not in control. It's also a story of heroic perseverance of people (about 75% of those starting out) enduring one hardship after another to hold onto their land, their lives, and each other. Today green fields stretch as far as one can see - thanks to giant irrigation 'walkers' in what was 'No Man's Land,' centered around Boise City, OK. Now once again the southern Plains are in the midst of another devastating drought. A few of the old buildings remain.

Both the DVD and the book follow a few individuals and their families throughout that decade, and includes numerous quotes from those individuals to help tell the story. Caroline Henderson, raised on an Iowa farm, graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1901, taught school in Eva, OK. and then homesteaded 160 acres nearby in 1907 while building what she called a 'castle' - actually a 14'X16' shack. She married, had a daughter, published a series of 'Letters from the Dustbowl' in the Atlantic Monthly, and died in 1965 shortly after revisiting in 1965; Ms. Henderson put her land (by then 640 acres) into a perpetual trust after retiring in 1965, never to be plowed again. She died in 1966, but not before also warning of the dangers of pumping from the Ogallala reservoir.

Years earlier, boosters claimed that 'rain follows the plow,' only to be proven wrong in a six-year drought in the 1890s. Nonetheless, between the Homestead Act, developers buying ($5/acre) breaking big ranches into smaller plots and then selling them for $15/acre, railroads doing similarly with the large tracts they were given, special excursion trains bringing people in by the thousands, and stories that the former chancellor of the Univ. of Kansas had determined the area climate had permanently shifted, government claims that Texas County was the most productive winter-what area in the nation, and fraudulent developer promises, bought 32,000 new settlers by 2007, half in Texas County with Ms. Henderson.

Growing wheat offered returns 10X those from raising cattle for a given amount of land. During WWII, access to Russian wheat was cut off, and wheat was needed for the troops. The U.S. government set a floor of $2/bushel; later, during the Dust Bowl prices would fall to 17 cents/bushel.

Boise City was named after the French word for forest, a deliberate deception, made worse by the city also lacking the promised artesian wells and fancy tree-shaded houses claimed by the developers. (Both were sent to Leavenworth, one died there.) The dust problems were caused by tearing out the existing buffalo grass (roots up to 5' deep), those trying to get rich quick (including 'suitcase farmers' living elsewhere - one had 54 square miles in the Texas Panhandle, used 25 combines to harvest, and lived in Hollywood), and replacing 'lister plows' that had created deep furrows that caught blowing soil with 'one-way' plows that simply pulverized the top layer. Cattlemen had been there 40 - 50 years already and knew plowing the ground was the wrong thing to do, but some did it anyway, at night, on their neighbor's land.

Shortly after noon on 1/21/32, a dust cloud appeared outside Amarillo, rising 10,000 feet into the air and carrying dust at 60 mph. Old-timers said they'd never seen anything like it in their lives. It was but the first of hundreds, perhaps even a thousand. You could walk up on the roof of a barn using the dirt piled up against it in some places; some farmers found it easier to tear their barns down and salvage the wood than to try to dig out the huge drifts. It was not uncommon to be able to walk over the top of a fence, even cattle did it - using the dust accumulated around piled up tumbleweeds. Artifacts once well buried came into the open - arrowheads, Spanish stirrups from the conquistadors, branding irons. Unsecured chickens blew away.

The government paid ranchers to cull their herds - shipping those healthy enough to withstand the trip to slaughterhouses and shooting those too frail.

One of Ms. Henderson's neighbors, Harry Forester, dreamed of bequeathing 640 acres of productive wheat land to each of his five sons - ultimately he'd lose it all and flee with his family to Oakland in 1935 to work digging trenches for sewer systems, sending most of the money back to his wife and 9 children still in Oklahoma (they received commodities from government relief agencies) while renting a home in Oakland. His wife's efforts to grow a garden during the dust storm years failed, despite water from a windmill, because the wind, blowing sand and dirt shredded everything. The family joined Harry in 1936 and his sons attended college and had successful careers as teachers, etc.

'What we have is a classic story of hubris, of bubbles that burst, and a test of human character.' (Ken Burns) Some 130 individuals were interviewed, and many shared their family albums. The book is an excellent companion to Burns' excellent 4-hour DVD; unfortunately I also noted it was printed in China, but that's another long, sad story.

Fantastic book by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan. I got it at the library and was fortunate enough to get a couple of snow days to read and finish it. Usually not the case during the school year. As an ardent fan of The Grapes of Wrath and a big FDR/Great Depression fan this book was phenomenol! Brilliant first hand accounts of life on the Great Plains from the bang em up 1920s to the desperation of the 1930s. Oral histories from people who lived the Dust Bowl as children and their recollections as senior citizens. The study of history is most important as a way to improve the future. The Dust Bowl was a product of human inability to understand nature and ecosystems. Lessons learned from this era should be advantageous to us now. We, however, like those who practiced the faulty farming techniques of the past century are choosing to not listen. We continue to squander precious resources and ask the earth to do things for our comfort that make no ecological sense. Brilliant book for fans of the not so Great Depression, the Great Plains, the New Deal and those of an ecological bent, too. I can not wait to see the film. A must for all of us. There are so many lessons to be learned here. Our ancestors were indeed amazing people. Strong, rugged and independent. A great and uplifting story for all of us.

The Dust Bowl, written and assembled by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, is a gripping account of the worst ecological catastrophe America ever saw. Its many pictures and accompanying text form a compelling, sometimes emotional read. The devastation to the land and its people, the dust pneumonia and the mental breakdowns, comes fully alive in this book.

The authors follow the histories of specific people as they clung to the land and were sometimes driven from it. The most compelling of these accounts is that of an amazing woman named Caroline Henderson. Caroline grew up on a prosperous farm in Iowa and received higher education at Mount Holyoke College, every inch an Ivy League school. Around 1907 and as a college grauate, she moved to the Oklahoma Panhandle and married a local guy. She wrote beautifully of all her experiences and was frequently published, even in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly. The moving accounts of her experiences during the devastating Thirties form a taut anchor that holds the book together.

The book also contains interesting items that couldn't fit into the film. The most fascinating of these is the account of a young woman who left the Oklahoma Panhandle in the late twenties and came back to visit at the depth of the dust bowl. She left originally because she was "the gambler's daughter" and at the bottom of society. When she visited, she found that the drought and storms had destroyed the region's social stratification.

It is true that this book isn't quite as good as the documentary film. However, that film will probably win every award it's eligible for. The book is merely ... superb.

Typically the Dust Bowl is only briefly covered in high school American history, and many of us best know its aftermath from reading "The Grapes of Wrath" but there is so much more to this story than most of us know. This book is a great companion to the film. Both expose the human story that our education system usually ignores. The book and film benefit from the availability of vivid photography that illuminates the heartbreaking stories told by the survivors that the filmmakers were lucky to interview, some of whom have died since the filming was done. I hope US history teachers will get this book for their classrooms and incorporate it into their curriculum.

Having enjoyed Ken Burn's The Dust Bowl (which in my mind is one of, if not the best doc on this subject), I couldn't wait to read the coffee table book co-written by him & Dayton Duncan.

While most of the inform is taken from the documentary, the personal accounts from those who went though the horrors of the dust storms really stand out & help give the Dust Bowl a human face. Also, as this is a coffee table book, it is filled with colorful photos & illustrations, which gives the feeling of one being there in the Great Plains during this time. Overall this makes for a great companion book to the PBS miniseries & a must have for libraries too.

Great content, great pictures, bad Kindle formatting. Right margins are not flushed and are staggered. This is a huge pet peeve of mine when it comes to ebooks. Picture quality is great on tablet screens, but lacking on actual standalone Kindle reading devices. If you want the full, uninterrupted experience, I suggesting buying the hardcover book instead.

As you would expect from Burns and Duncan, a very good book with interesting stories from folks that really lived through this. Our area had high winds and the farm fields around blew pretty badly recently, and we got a taste of what one of these storms was capable of. I am in awe of what these tough people lived through, not sure anyone I know would be strong enough emotionally to remain on the land as it's blowing away from you.

Such a great book abou t the Great Dustbowl which lasted ten years. This is not a novel, but actual historic events that touched families, towns, homes, cities and the agricultural demise. Extradinarially wonderful true stories and events. Be sure to read this book.

Made the history of the dust storms come alive. I studied it in school by didn't appreciate how it must have felt until reading these family stories. We should learn from it and tackle today's climate change with speed and accuracy.

As noted in other reviews, I bought several Dust Bowl books and DVDs because I don't recall ever reading about the Dust Bowl. Also, I can use all these books and DVDs to teach my 4th grade class about it. Very interesting with loads of pictures!

Very moving and informative. I thought I knew more about the era, but the book was concise and direct. I learned for sure that humanity has an interconnecting relationship with nature. We should learn from this book that WE can improve or destroy out environment to an extent.

Maybe I slept through history when we heard about the dust bowl in school, but I learned so much reading this book. I had no idea what was involved. On top of that it was interesting. I didn't want to put it down.

This is a fantastic book with great stories and photographs from a very difficult time in our nation's history.

This is the perfect companion book to go along with the PBS series.

Five stars.

My children, now in their 50s know virtually nothing about the Dust Bowl. Such a sad commentary. These were amazing people and their story deserves to be known by everyone, especially those who think their life is hard.

A very telling comment from one of the survivors of the Dust Bowl was that the dust got everywhere in their home and it was impossible to stop it blowing in. Homes are rightly regarded as safe havens once inside the front door, an escape from the outside world except in a dust storm. Those years in the Thirties must have been extraordinary times for the thousands who lived on the southern Plain States.

Ken Burns' documentary makes these years come alive with plenty of archive news film, photos and spoken commentary from people who witnessed it all (I've seen a few clips). Unfortunately I didn't think the book looked as good as it should using some of this material. The text certainly captures the period but is set in rather large type suggesting that maybe this title was aimed at the educational market. There are far too many snapshots of people and families (about seventy-seven) just looking at a camera. To the people in these photos, of course, they are precious memories and in Burns' documentary he has the luxury of having a rostrum camera pull into a photo and then pan across the faces suggesting movement even though it is a flat photo. In the book they are static on the page. The quality of the photos throughout the pages varies enormously, too dark, too light or badly framed but that is the nature of amateur snapshots.

The way the photos (especially the family ones) and graphics have been used is very bland and unimaginative. Ones that are poor technically but nevertheless have something to say are large and overpower some that are full of detail but small. Graphics like newspaper cuttings and maps are too small for the reader's benefit (a map on page 208 is so small as to be useless). The best pages are the twelve chapter openers where interesting photos run right across a spread.

If only the book's editorial presentation had been as creative as the documentary this would have been a fine visual history that really captured the feel of those terrible years.