Dust Bowl, USA: Depression America and the Ecological Imagination, 1929-1941

An in-depth look at the historical truth behind the popular myths Whether romantic or tragic, accounts of the dramatic events surrounding the North American Dust Bowl of the dirty thirties unearthed deep anxieities buried in America’s ecological imagination. Moreover, the anxieties about a landscape of fear remain embedded in the national consciousness today. In vivid form, the aesthetic of suffering captured in Dorothea Lange’s photographs and Wood Guthrie’s folk songs made the myths and memories of the Depression generation. Dust Bowl, USA is a critical examination of the stories that grew out of the Dust Bowl experience Across the nation, newspapers, magazines, books, film, and aong, produced imagery of blight for local and mass audiences. As new technology, irrigation innovations, and conservation programs were introduced on a wide scale during the 1930s, the saga of the frontier continued to unfold through accounts of dust, drought, and desertification. In piercing the myths brought forth in legends, lore, allegories, and antecdotes, Brad Lookingbill provides a revelatory insight into the history of the cultural narratives that have come to define an era.