dust bowl

We talked about the dust bowl in the Great Plains, where he’d attended college; the tragic crash of the Hindenburg blimp; and concert vocalist Marian Anderson’s performance before more than seventy-five thousand people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

But this is foundational stuff for a filmmaker specializing in American figures, institutions and events — the Dust Bowl, Prohibition, women’s suffrage, baseball, the buffalo, Muhammad Ali, the Central Park Five, Frank Lloyd Wright, the National Parks and Mark Twain.

The novel tells the story of a family of Oklahoma tenant farmers who lose their land during the Dust Bowl and migrate to California in search of work and stability.

Though such matters were not discussed at the dinner table, Fonda’s father raised money for Democratic candidates and starred in politically imbued films such as “The Grapes of Wrath,” about the exploitation of migrant workers during the Dust Bowl, and “12 Angry Men,” which focused on prejudice, groupthink and the importance of due process during the McCarthy era.

“He was learning all these traditional Appalachian instruments, and I said, ‘That’s awesome because my house is set in the Dust Bowl.’”