FDR Presidential Library

Video 352

The Plow that Broke the Plains

From the Wikipedia. he Plow That Broke the Plains (1936) is a short documentary film which shows what happened to the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada when uncontrolled agricultural farming led to the Dust Bowl. It was written and directed by Pare Lorentz. Lorentz worked on the film with composer Virgil Thomson, who shared Lorentz' enthusiasm for folk music and incorporated many folk melodies, along with other popular and religious music, into the soundtrack. The film was narrated by the American baritone Thomas Hardie Chalmers. The film was sponsored by the United States government (Resettlement Administration) to raise awareness about the New Deal and was intended to cost ,000 or less; it eventually cost over 9,000 and Lorentz, turning in many receipts written on various scraps of paper, had many of his reimbursements denied and paid for much of the film himself.

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