In 1936, 20-year-old Arthur Rothstein documented a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. The Dust Bowl was an environmental and human disaster centered in parts of Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, Colorado, and New Mexico. During the wheat-boom of WW I, farmers had plowed-up 100 million acres of deep-rooted, drought-resistant prairie grasses. When the periodic cycle of Great Plains drought recurred in the 1930s, the soil was left vulnerable to erosion. A series of savage windstorms stripped away the topsoil, raising boiling clouds of sand and dirt. Fine particles of dust penetrated every building, sickening people and livestock. Many succumbed to “dust pneumonia.”

Both the Resettlement Administration (1935) and its successor, the Farm Security Administration (1937), undertook the massive task of aiding the people and restoring the land. Submarginal acreage was removed from cultivation. Improved plowing, planting and irrigation practices protected marginal land from erosion. Loans and grants supported the majority who stayed. Land acquisition and relocation assistance aided thousands of displaced families.