The Dust Bowl Through the Lens: How Photography Revealed and Helped Remedy a National Disaster

The Dust Bowl was a time of hardship and disaster. The worst ecological disaster in our nations history turned more than 100 million acres of fertile land almost completely to dust. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to seek new homes and opportunities thousands of miles away, while millions more chose to stay and battle nature to save their land.  These terrible repercussions from the Dust Bowl contributed to the Great Depression, which impacted the entire country.

FDRs New Deal army of photographers took to the roads during this national crisis to document the human struggle of the proud people of the plains. Their pictures spoke a thousand words, and a new form a storytelling—photojournalism—was born. These talented cameramen and women used photographs to inform the rest of the nation and bring about much-needed change. With the help of iconic images from Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, and many more, Martin W. Sandler tells the story of this man-made natural disaster and these troubling economic times, ultimately showing how a nation can endure its darkest days through extraordinary courage and human spirit.

The Dust Bowl was a time of hardship and environmental and economic disaster. More than 100 million acres of land had turned to dust, causing hundreds of thousands of people to seek new homes and opportunities thousands of miles away, while millions more chose to stay and battle nature to save their land.

FDR's army of photographers took to the roads to document this national crisis. Their pictures spoke a thousand words, and a new form of storytelling- photojournalism-was born. With the help of iconic photographs from Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, and many more, Martin Sandler tells the story of a nation as it endured its darkest days and the extraordinary courage and spirit of those who survived.

MARTIN W. SANDLER is the author of Lincoln Through the Lens, which received two starred reviews and was named an Orbis Pictus Recommended Book, as well as more than sixty books, two of which have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Among his other books are The Story of American Photography, which was named a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book, and the six volumes in his award-winning Library of Congress history series for young people. He has won five Emmy Awards for his writing for television and has taught American history and American studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and at Smith College. Mr. Sandler lives in with his wife in Cotuit, Massachusetts.