Cottonwood Connection

Dirty 30s: Building to Rebuild

Season 8 Episode 8 | 24m 40sVideo has Closed Captions

Depression and drought ravaged farming communities of the plains. Part 3

Depression and drought ravaged farming communities of the plains. Public works programs from agricultural practices to infrastructural facilities to works of art would employ people in efforts to rebuild.

05/31/2026

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Cottonwood Connection is a local public television program presented by Smoky Hills PBS

Cottonwood Connection

Dirty 30s: Building to Rebuild

Season 8 Episode 8 | 24m 40sVideo has Closed Captions

05/31/2026

Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

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Depression, drought, and dust defined the Dirty Thirties experience on the Plains, but these were challenges met with resilience, determination, and good old hard work. The complex issues around the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl were not easily addressed.

In our final of three episodes on the Dirty Threes, our host Don Rolison is again joined by Kansas State University professors Dr.

Andrew Orr and Dr.

Suzanne Orr.

Professor Emeritus of Purdue University Dr.

Richard Hurt, author of Dust Bowl and Agricultural and Social History, and Nolan Sump, educator and historical performer in his presentation as a 1930s Kansas farmer This dust it takes takes away about everything that you have.

If you're not broke then you lose everything altogether, but fortunately someone's been listening.

See our president Roosevelt who I did vote for in the last election because I thought maybe he could help us out, it's not often I do such a thing, but he came up with this alphabet soup of government programs.

So FDR created all of these programs to try something to get the country out of the Depression and his critics referred to it as alphabet soup because every program had it had its abbreviation the NRA the AAA the CCC.

See we've got the FERA, RA, the SES now it's called the SCS and the PWA and the WPA well how all of that I thought it was a DUMB that I should ask for charity.

I've read the papers I've seen the pictures of the folks in the Chicago Tribune and New York Times and I didn't want to be like them I didn't want to be a popper where I'd have to to ask for help.

I felt that I could just do this on my own and and be independent of all of that, but take a look at my family I had to do something. Prior to that there were no government subsidies.

Farmers had a hard time before the dust bowl because if you had a drought or something you'd lost your crop you just lost everything and so the government subsidies helps you keep the farmers on the farm and maybe in a poor state but they were still there and that's what counts.

By 1935 even with Roosevelt trying all of these things the country's still in a depression and he's getting more criticism even on his left about not doing enough and reelection is coming soon and the new deal can effectively be broken up into two parts a first new deal and a second new deal and so those programs like the NRA and the AAA about managing the economy those are part of the first new deal.

For the second new deal which is going to be this next wave of programs in 1935 responding to his critics those programs are going to be the ones that touch individual people's day-to-day lives.

When Roosevelt first took office the idea of creating make-work programs to end the depression he thought it was a terrible idea he thought it would create dependency among people and that this was something that would be fundamentally damaging.

By the late 1930s he's abandoned that belief and is fully in support of creating these types of make-work programs based on these economic ideas that say what matters most is getting money into the hands of consumers.

By the late 1930s his administration has embraced a new political economic philosophy coming out of Britain called Keynesianism.

John Maynard Keynes, major British economist who argued that the solution to things like a depression was government spending.

Essentially you could counteract a business cycle by having governments inject money into the economy.

Roosevelt would describe it in one of his fireside chats as priming the pump.

You know when a well has gone you know gone dry for a while because it hasn't been used you can't just pump it and have water come out.

You have to pour water into the spigot of the well in order for the pump to work.

So programs like the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, which was known for building some of those structures that we still have with us today, that's going to be a second New Deal program.

Just the concept of putting people to work is is going to part of this newer set of ways to deal with the Depression. You and you and you and you you've got a president now He gave the land a New Deal. You hold the cards now you deal. You and you and you and you put shoulders to the plow. He gave us what we asked for now pay him back somehow. Step out in front, get back of the president, and give a man a job. Fortunately I've been able to get loans from the bankers and they've got government programs for that too. I've been able to barely make ends meet and I did take part with the WPA.

In fact we built a couple of public buildings here in this county that I've helped out with that helps pay the bills a little bit.

A lot of people were out of work so they started such things a Civilian Conservation Corps called the CCC and others.

So this is it was a chance where they could do government projects at a very cheap rate and hire people at a very cheap rate and train them to do it.

So it's actually a training program. You take this message straight from the president and give a man a job. And so it was employing these people to do public service.

In fact Antelope Lake, which is about three miles east of the Cottonwood Ranch, was a CCC project.

But it offered people jobs and if they had big projects like building a lake they would hire farmers with their teams of horses or mules to run the horse-powered scrapers and fresnos and things like that.

If they leased or rented the horses you still might have a job of driving your own horses but they fed them and they housed them, which you couldn't do at home and you didn't have enough money to buy a tractor to replace the horses.

There are programs like the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, and as part of this there are lots of different pieces and it's not just programs for construction but they're programs that put photographers to work, that put writers to work, artists.

You see these projects in post offices in this part of the country where artists were paid to do a mural of something.

Well these are wonderful art projects that gave people that didn't have an income and income and let them use their artistic skills that are very much part of our heritage today.

Here in Kansas at Kansas State if you visit Hale Library, the great room, the old reading room of the library has giant walls covered in murals painted with WPA money.

There was folklore projects where you'd go around and ask people about the folklore and what they did.

In fact there's a book called Horse Trading.

They were talking to old horse traders and recording what they did and it wouldn't been done if it hadn't been for the government projects of going out and seeking out people that had experienced things prior to the dust bowl and living through it.

There are programs for all different types of workers.

So you have beautification, you have towns where sidewalks are built with WPA or CCC money.

So it can be very big things like huge dams, airports being built, long-term economic infrastructure and just short-term things that make people happy for a little while that get some money going, sustain the local construction companies trying to generate momentum.

Part of his genius politically was to realize big programs could shape long-term economic trajectories and little ones would get you reelected and might help jumpstart local economies and feed into a virtuous cycle.

But it was a benefit to those who could work but there's still remnants around.

The city park in Hill City was a CCC project.

The township hall in Bogue, the township hall in Nicodemus, the schoolhouse at Tasco which is between Hoxie and the Cottonwood Ranch with a CCC project.

It showed people how to quarry the stone which was the Ogallala.

It showed them how to put it up to build it and so it served as training for a trade as a government subsidy. You're subsidizing an intern.

Football Stadium, Hoxie and I think the one in Oakley. Numerous swimming pools.

The only place there was any water was City Wells but they did things like build zoos.

Just all sorts of projects.

There were museums that they built, art centers in various places, libraries, a lot of active stuff. There's another major footprint of the Dust Bowl today and it is the Cimarron National Grassland in Morton County, Kansas.

The federal government as early as 1933 through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration set aside some money to buy up sub-marginal farms.

They're going to buy up a hundred thousand acres in this county.

The federal government is simply saying, "Look, why not solve this wind erosion problem by buying up a lot of these farms that are blowing away and we'll just plant it in grass.

" And use these soil conserving practices so that way they can turn the soil back into a prairie once again. It seems a bit far-fetched.

I'd say it has to rain before that happens. We'll go into an area and we'll do a big survey and we'll decide what farms probably aren't sustainable. So far they've had about 70,000 acres. I think that they've had folks give up. And I'm right on the edge here where there's been a couple plots around me that they've decided to do so. And I'd have to say that's not a bad idea. The government, the newspapers and leaders in the counties in Morton County, Kansas is a good example, would make the pitch that, "Go buy your land.

" Wouldn't the banker be happy if I came in with an amount of money like that?

I could pay some bills off. But it also means they'd tear down the house and the shed and the barn and we'd have to move. Well, I've been here about 20 years. This has been a part of Uncle Milo's place. But if this is the worst land to farm on, it's given me a lot to think about. The footprint is there today.

In 1953, the Forest Service was given responsibility for these land utilization projects. And in 1960, they proclaimed national grasslands. Some of the programs that Roosevelt created, things like the FDIC to ensure people's deposits in banks, that's still around as a protection. FDIC, those programs are especially important to small towns where you had one bank. And if that bank doesn't survive a financial crisis, you have no bank. And that creates a localized financial depression. FDIC, things like that, meant those rural banks survived through the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, where we did have periodic financial crises. Some of these programs helped insulate the economy from those. And a lot of them were really important to little places that didn't have a lot of people or a lot of margin. But the government is one as so far as the farmers are concerned, in which they now could turn to for assistance. But there's another side to this coin. Once the federal government entered the agricultural economy and the Dust Bowl and the Great Plains in general, it never left. The effects of the AAA are now baked into the foundations of American agriculture. American agriculture has not been a kind of open free market since the 1930s. There was a conscious government decision aimed at supporting rural areas, trying to maintain a farm economy, trying to maintain rural communities' existence. Even though the production control programs and the price support programs have gone away and terminated, the government is still there with insurance payments for various disasters. And that first became applicable with the Agriculture Adjustment Act of 1938. So there is still a fingerprint, maybe not a heavy footprint, but a fingerprint of the federal government in the agricultural economy in terms of dependency of farmers. Now with these government subsidies, that was the seed for the government subsidies that keep continuing on. Because they found out if you don't have farmers, you don't have crops, the area goes broke. You don't have the people to pay the taxes. But there's a lot of qualifications you need. I mean, you have to have things inspected to make sure you put the crop in. You have to have receipt of how much seed you spent. And it doesn't pay for the whole thing, but it gets you through. You don't make money on subsidies, but at the best you break even, but it keeps you there. Ultimately, the coming of World War II, the United States economy is going to have to meet the demands of fighting the war. And it ratchets up the whole economy. Production increases dramatically. There isn't going to be these high unemployment rates anymore. The war begins impacting America and pushing away the depression even before the U.S.

enters it. Because like with World War I, the Americans stayed out. But it comes to Europe on September 1, 1939. And immediately you start having a repeat of World War I in terms of its economic effects on the United States. Britain and France begin mobilizing millions of soldiers to fight. They lose access to agricultural markets that are behind German lines. They start buying food from the United States again. They begin drawing on America's industrial economy, which has a lot of surplus capacity. And it's happy to make steel helmets for British soldiers, wool uniforms for French soldiers. The Neutrality Acts of the 1930s slow down arms purchases. But FDR is deeply committed both to beating the Nazis and pumping money into the American economy. So he goes to work trying to slowly undo those acts. In the end, he's going to use American government money to finance British arms purchases, keep Britain in the war, and keep Americans working. FDR believes in both of those things very strongly. And so you'll see a boom coming even before the U.S.

enters the war with Pearl Harbor. FDR is expanding the armed forces. He has a draft before the U.S.

enters the war. That's going to soak up unemployment. And you have money flooding through the economy to pay for all of the equipment to keep countries fighting the Nazis before the American people are ready to enter the war. Japan will decide we're ready for us. With the attack on Pearl Harbor and then Hitler, in the greatest strategic blunder in world history, responds to Pearl Harbor by declaring war on the United States, bringing the U.S.

into the war in Europe and obliterating what remains of the Depression. For young men especially, it came at a moment where they had come of age in the Depression looking for a way out. And this was true for rural poverty. My grand- one of my grandfathers grew up in rural Nebraska. As a young man, he worked on the family farm during the height of the Depression. As soon as he comes of age, he's moving, looking for a place where he can find a financial future. He doesn't think it's going to be rural Nebraska. He goes to Los Angeles, lives in south central L.A. And he found a job, but like a lot of migrants, it wasn't a very good job. 1941, he hitchhikes and train-hops his way back to Nebraska. And then comes Pearl Harbor right after he gets home. And he enlisted the Army. He wants to avenge Pearl Harbor. He wants a financial future. And for four years, the Army gave him both. And he wasn't unusual in that story. But he comes out of the Army with a skill set that he learned fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, but turned out to be leverageable for a whole series of civilian occupations where a basic understanding of working in engineering turns out to be helpful for factory work. I think one of the big debates about the Dust Bowl for historians is a question of how much of it was just environmental causes that no one could control, like drought, versus how much of it were choices that farmers made, driven by wanting to make profit. And like how much land should they have in production? What crops should they be using? What measures should they be taking to preserve the soil? Well, I think a lesson from the dirty 30s is applicable with the filthy 50s. And that is, farmers did learn from the past. And those that haven't, they still pay a price. But they've learned that you have to use certain soil conservation techniques, whether it's fallowing your wheat lands, whether it's contour plowing, whether it's having maybe a little more diversification with grain sorghum production, which is a big deal in southwestern Kansas, a day with the feedlots. There's sort of a new market there since the 30s. The long term effect of the dirty 30s in the United States is it improved all the farming. Farming became more of a science than a chance operation. So there's a lot of information about how to conserve the soil, how to conserve your livestock. A whole lot of things came through that that still continues on today. It was a catalyst for a lot of things we do today. I think farmers in this part of the country have always had to adapt to the environment. There's a certain boundary beyond which they can't go. The environment, to me, and not everybody agrees with this, is sort of a controlling parameter. You can make adjustments within these parameters. As long as you do that, you can probably sustain your operations. To me, I look back at this period of people can learn from the past. It's not necessarily easy. Often problems are beyond the potential of an individual to solve. Can the dust bowl happen again? Of course, but it shouldn't. But it's always going to be a little dusty and dirty out there. You have drought conditions. So the cyclical nature of the environment is always going to be a factor that people have to contend with. [music]