Bam White, the father of Melt White, was the unlikely star of a classic documentary about the Dust Bowl by filmmaker Pare Lorenz. Earning a month's wages in two hours, White had no idea what the film was about. "The Plow that Broke the Plains" was a propaganda film promoting the New Deal's agricultural reforms. White played the original farmer who plowed the Great Plains, breaking the pristine ground with the farming techniques that would lead to the disaster of the Dust Bowl. Learn more with this resource from American Experience: "Surviving the Dust Bowl."