Dust Bowl - HISTORY

Families were driven out of the once fertile great plains by massive dust clouds--one that rose to 10,000 feet and reached as far as New York City.

FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

RELATED CONTENT

On September 6, 1936, in one of his famous fireside chat radio broadcasts, President Franklin Roosevelt describes the conditions he observed firsthand on a tour of the many states devastated by drought.

In the early 1930's, every spring in the Tennessee River Valley brought on an onslaught of rain which totaled six feet each year. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority to fix the problem.

From the pulpit of his weekly religious radio program, "Golden Hour of the Shrine of the Little Flower," Father Charles Edward Coughlin rails against the WPA and the "dole" system. Coughlin's broadcasts were hugely popular during the Great Depression, reaching 16 million listeners, but his increasingly vitriolic and anti-Semitic statements led to the eventual demise of his radio show.

On October 18, 1931, as the nation faces a deepening depression, President Herbert Hoover announces in his radio address the inauguration of a six-week campaign to raise local relief funds to aid the unemployed.

On September 30, 1935, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes formally dedicates the Hoover Dam during a ceremony attended by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The dam was built by thousands of workers in one of America's most inhospitable environments.