<P> The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors, many hired during the Great Depression by the federal government . For instance, the Farm Security Administration hired numerous photographers to document the crisis . Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression . She captured what have become classic images of the dust storms and migrant families . Among her most well - known photographs is Destitute Pea Pickers in California . Mother of Seven Children, which depicted a gaunt - looking woman, Florence Owens Thompson, holding three of her children . This picture expressed the struggles of people caught by the Dust Bowl and raised awareness in other parts of the country of its reach and human cost . Decades later, Thompson disliked the boundless circulation of the photo and resented the fact she did not receive any money from its broadcast . Thompson felt it gave her the perception as a Dust Bowl "Okie ." </P> <P> The work of independent artists was also influenced by the crises of the Dust Bowl and the Depression . Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb, wrote The Grapes of Wrath (1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust Bowl . Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown, was written in 1939 but was eclipsed and shelved in response to the success of the Steinbeck's work, and was finally published in 2004 . Many of the songs of folk singer Woody Guthrie, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads, are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour". </P> <P> Migrants also influenced musical culture wherever they went . Oklahoma migrants, in particular, were rural Southwesterners who carried their traditional country music to California . Today, the "Bakersfield Sound" describes this blend, which developed after the migrants brought country music to the city . Their new music inspired a proliferation of country dance halls as far south as Los Angeles . </P> <P> The 2014 science fiction film Interstellar features a ravaged 21st - century America which is again scoured by dust storms (caused by a worldwide pathogen affecting all crops). Along with inspiration from the 1930s crisis, director Christopher Nolan features interviews from the 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl to draw further parallels . </P>

What is the significance of the dust bowl