Survival

One of the main themes that emerges from “The Worst Hard Time” is one of survival. The story of the Dust Bowl when viewed from the distance of time and history is a series of government reports, statistics, and conclusions about the causation of the tragedy. But the real story of the black blizzards that made such an indelible black mark in American history is that of the people who fought the forces of nature and stood up to a challenge they didn’t want and deep down feared they couldn’t meet.

But there was so much more to the story of the Dust Bowl than how many storms there were and how deep the dirt, silt and grit was and how many tons it weighed. The untold story if that of the Americans who found themselves in a black abyss that seemed to be all powerful...