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Dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas in 1935 (NOAA George E. Marsh Album)
It's not a documentary about watching paint dry, but it could be close. It's a documentary about watching the ground drying up and blowing away. It's an upcoming PBS documentary from Emmy award winning documentarian Ken Burns. It's tentatively titled "The Dust Bowl" and it's what Ken Burn's production company Florentine Films will be working on for possibly the next two years.
The dust bowl was a massive drought combined with a lack of crop rotation which caused soil erosion that occurred primarily in Oklahoma but stretched from Texas to Canada during the 1930's. It was accompanied by a mass migration of people who fled the drought area.
Ken Burns is personally appearing on commercials requesting those that lived through the dust bowl and those with film footage to contact dustbowl@oeta.tv with a short description of how they can help. Ken Burns also posted a special message on Oklahoma PBS affiliate OETA's website requesting:
"We're looking for first-person stories of Oklahomans who lived through those hard, hard times, especially out in the Panhandle, where the Dust Bowl was the worst."
It seems by the request that Ken Burns plans to cover the typical Grapes of Wrath type story of the dust bowl and ignore the vast amount of oil wealth that was generated in eastern Oklahoma during the same period. He'll cover the story of the Joad like family that throw what little they have on the back of a truck and trek out to California, but is he going to cover the pipe fitter in Tulsa that has a maid and whose children get a case of Pepsi every week? Is he going to mention that the area in the 1800's was regarded as the Great American Desert and the reason the farmers that had to leave had been able to cultivate the area in the first place is because of a relative wet period that ended in 1930?
The story he tells will depend on the materials he receives, but the material he receives depends on the material he requests.
If you or someone you know can help with the dust bowl project notify them by sending a short note on how you can serve as a resource by either
emailing dustbowl@oeta.tv
calling OETA at 1-800-846-7665
or writing to:
OETA Dustbowl Stories
P.O. Box 14190
Oklahoma City, OK 73113
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