The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936)

Directed by

Pare Lorentz

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

25 min

Rating

5.9 of 10 from 16 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This short documentary examines how settlers plowed up the Great Plains after the Civil War. It shows how the misuse of natural resources led to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

educationalsoberinghistoricalreflectiveinformativeearnestmelancholicthoughtful

What happens

The Plow That Broke the Plains is a 1936 short documentary film that shows the cultivation of the Great Plains region of the United States and Canada following the Civil War and leading up to the Dust Bowl as a result of exploitation of the Great Plains' natural resources.The Plow That Broke the Plains was the first film created by the US government for commercial release and distribution through the Resettlement Administration as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal program. The Resettlement Administration recruited Pare Lorentz to produce The Plow That Broke the Plains to support its campaign of showing the public that the search for profits in the West resulted in the displacement of settlers, misuse of the land, and ultimately resulted in the dust storms that affected the Great Plains regions in the 1930s. The film was one of the most widely publicized attempts by the U.S. federal government to communicate to its citizens through motion pictures. The Plow That Broke the Plains was written and directed by Pare Lorentz independently while the music score was written by composer Virgil Thomson. The film was narrated by the American actor and baritone Thomas Hardie Chalmers. In 1999, The Plow That Broke the Plains was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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