With the 1940 presidential election, safely behind him, Franklin Roosevelt spent 1941 inching

the United States as close as possible to an alliance with the British while still technically remaining neutral.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music Episode 344, America First.

I've talked many times now about how difficult it was for farmers after the First World

War. I've brought it up often enough you're probably sick of hearing about it by now,

but it connects with much of the history of the period, and it's important to keep in mind.

I want to begin today's episode by talking about the trials that a certain group of American farmers faced,

those farming the Great Plains, particularly the region, including parts of Missouri,

Arkansas, and Texas, and larger parts of Kansas, Nebraska, and especially Oklahoma, the region known

as the High Plains.

Since the early days of the Republic, the U.S. government had been handing out free parcels

of land in the undeveloped west of the country.

These were known as homesteads.

Some of the very last of the homesteads distributed were in the region I just described,

and were given out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

These lands were the last to be distributed, for a few reasons, principally because they were dry,

not quite desert, but not far removed from it either. To compensate for the agricultural marginality of these lands, the U.S. government increased the size

of the homesteads it was offering from the customary 160 acres, which is about 65 hectares,

to expanses of land double or even quadruple that amount.

In the early 20th century, just as these homesteads were being settled, the region received unusually

high amounts of rainfall. That, plus agricultural mechanization, which allowed a lone farmer to plant and harvest much larger

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