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In lecture 11 "It looks so awful black" we watched two movies about the dust bowl. The first one was the plow that broke the plains and the second was the Rain for the plains. They both were about the dust bowl but had different endings. They talked about how hard it was during the times of the dust bowl. The movies were made for the U.S. department of Agriculture. I thought that they were horrible movies but it had allot of information even though they did not say to much. the way they showed how hard it was to farm the land and how hard it was for the people make a living during this time. Some things I found interesting was that people had to cover there whole houses with sheets to keep the dust out. Another interesting thing was at supper time or meal time, when they set the table they set the plates and bowls upside down to keep the dust off the plates while the food was still cooking because the dust would still get in the house. A couple more things that we talked about that was interesting was that you could not see your hands in front of your face, when you were in the dust storm, and that the dust storms kill crops. I knew that the dust bowls killed the crops but I did not know it was by static electricity. the movies showed allot of people pack up and leave the plains. Some stuck it out and fought the storm of. They ran out of water so they had to go up to 6 miles to get some. I found it cool that when they did get water, when they spilled it helped out the small prairie birds that were living on the plains. The movies both showed how the farmers adapted to the conditions that the plains threw at them in order to survive and make a living. At the end of the movies we discussed the difference between the end of the movies. They are different because the plow that broke the plains showed that they needed help and it was implying that they need to get out of the plains and go to government camps to help them out. The other movie Rain for the plains its ending implied that they were going to stick it out because things were going to get better and they need a little charity help. This lecture really showed me how hard it really must have been during this time. I remember hearing story's and just hearing it in general how bad it was, but after this lecture I saw that it was worse than I thought it was.

Matthew Lee