Conditions in the dust bowl motivated a wide variety of responses from Americans. Ministers, politicians, and other "ordinary folk" tried to lighten the load of those who suffered. Crooks and con men tried to take advantage of people for their own profit. Most discovered that Great Plains families were smart, wary, and hesitant to accept charity except under the most desperate circumstances. As Donald Worster notes, "To ask for aid implied personal and providential [divine] failure.... In any case, there was little charity to be had, at least locally: no effective organization to give it out, public or private, in most counties; and nothing to give."

Relying on the Lord

Farm families were self-sufficient, but also deeply religious and had no difficulty turning to God for help in time of trouble. Drought and dust qualified as serious trouble, and in churches throughout...