Ветеран Першої світової війни Расті Рассел в спробі знайти сенс життя повертається в притулок, де мати залишила його ще дитиною, щоб стати тренером місцевої футбольної команди.

Фільм знятий за однойменною автобіографічною книгою американського фолк-музиканта Вуді Гатрі і охоплює відрізок його життя в роки Великої депресії. Дія фільму починається 1936 році, в містечку Пампа, штат Техас, з якого втомлений від злиднів і безробіття Гатрі автостопом відправляється на пошуки кращого життя в Каліфорнії...

Viennese surgeon Dr. Braun and his daughter Leni come to a small town in North Dakota as refugees from Hitler. When the winds of the Dust Bowl threaten the town, John Phillips leads the townsfolk in moving to greener pastures in Oregon. He falls for Leni, but she is betrothed to the man who helped her and her father escape from the Third Reich. She must decide between the two men.

At the height of the 1930's Dust Bowl, a scarecrow must leave his post and find a way to save the only family he's ever known. But facing the outside world proves to be a challenge when your face is a burlap sack.

In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains — the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl." This American Experience film presents the remarkable story of the determined people who clung to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease — even death — for nearly a decade. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers who stayed overcame an almost unbelievable series of calamities and disasters.