Resettlement Administration
Artist
Richard H. Jansen
1910 - 1988
Datec. 1935
MediumStone Lithography
Dimensions24 1/2 x 37 in. (62.2 x 94 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.861
DescriptionIn 1935, President Roosevelt established the Resettlement Administration to relocate devastated farmers from the Great Plains. During the 1910s and ‘20s, this region had been marketed primarily to European and Mexican immigrants as the ideal place to move, with an abundance of rich soil and opportunities for making money. The reality was that this part of the country was notorious for its droughts, near-constant winds, and generally unsuitable conditions for high-yield agriculture. Encouraged by the government to increase production during World War I to feed the Allies and then needing to produce even more once prices dropped after the war in order to make a living, farmers became stuck in a downward cycle and were pushed into abject poverty even before the Great Depression officially started. By the 1930s, the land had been so overfarmed that the prairie grasses that both held water and kept the soil in place with their deep root systems had been destroyed. Without it, ever-present winds ravaged the flat land made infertile through drought, creating mountainous dust storms, some as much as 200 miles wide and 10,000 feet tall, carrying thick dirt at 60 miles per hour across multiple states. These increasingly frequent storms blackened the skies for hours or days, literally suffocating both people and animals and leaving piles of dirt in their wake. In April of 1935, it became known as the Dust Bowl.On View
Not on view
