Let It Come Down (The Dust Bowl)

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One of South Dakota's "Black Blizzards": photographer unknown, 1934 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

The dust rose up over us in a solid wall like black snow


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Dust storm approaching Spearman, Texas, April 14, 1935: photographer unknown, 1935 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

Life never again to be the same


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Kodak view of dust storm, Baca,Colorado, Easter Sunday 1935
: photo by N.R. Stone, 1935 (Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)


The drifts covering everything -- was this our judgment?


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Soil blown by "dust bowl" winds piles up in large drifts near Liberal, Kansas: photo by Arthur Rothstein, March 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Nothing left to say -- our fate?


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The winds of the "dust bowl" have piled up in large drifts of soil around this farmer's barn near Liberal, Kansas: photo by Arthur Rothstein, March 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

A choked throat, no word to be spoken



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Abandoned farm in the dust bowl area of Oklahoma: photo by Arthur Rothstein, April 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Dead air stirring restlessly in space


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Abandoned farm in the dust bowl area of Oklahoma:
photo by Arthur Rothstein, April 1936
(Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

The voice of a time before we were born



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Sand drifts along fence,
Dust Bowl, north of Dalhart, Texas: photo by Dorothea Lange, June 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Wind that spills the soil over the section divides


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Sign, Pinal County, Arizona, The name "Dust Bowl" is reminiscent of home to the agricultural laborers of the region, many of whom come from the Dust Bowl sections of Texas and Oklahoma: photo by Russell Lee, February 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)