Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl

In the early 20th century, homesteaders converge on the southern Plains, where wet years, rising wheat prices and World War I produce a classic boom. Then, in 1931, a decade-long drought begins, exacerbated by the Great Depression.

The crucible of dust, drought and Depression intensifies. Many people on the southern Plains give up and join a “migration of the defeated” to California. There they are branded as “Okies” and face vicious discrimination.