of the Resettlement Administration which included: improvement of impoverished farm families, prevention of waste due to improper land use, structured utilization of land resources, recultivation of worn out and submarginal land, and relocation of families. Following Lorentz agreement to focus on land use and misuse and an estimate that the film could be produced with six-thousand dollars, Tugwell put his support behind the production of a film about the Dust Bowl. In a letter, Tugwell expressed that the film was to function as an internal educational tool for the Resettlement Administration and its employees to visualize and understand better the problems confronting them and to aid the administration in preventing the results of soil erosion related problems in the Great Plains. Additionally, the film was also to align with the goals of the Resettlement Administration and would explain the causes of the Dust Bowl, while also making a strong case for resettling destitute farmers, retiring marginal farmland from production, and restoring the grasslands in the West. In a review of his own film, Lorentz commented in McCall’s Magazine that he had two primary objectives: To show the audience an exciting portion of the country and to portray the events that led to “one of the major catastrophes in American history,” the Great Drought and the Dust Bowl. With a limited budget, Lorentz could only map out a small portion of the reality experienced in the Great Plains within a 28-minute frame. He, therefore, had to abstract, simplify, and compress the history of the Great Plains, while still attempting to portray the plains environment and history in a work of art that would not only elicit emotional responses from the audience but coerce them into corrective action that would rehabilitate the area and prevent future ecological catastrophes. Therefore Lorentz envisioned the film as a “lyric educational exercise, both practical and aesthetic, incorporating the history of the Great Plains from the first cattle drives to the punishing drought then entering its 6th year.” Lorentz's depiction differed from other portrayals of the Great Plains region. While photographers tended to emphasize the people of the plains as blameless victims, and mural artists emphasized the glorious past of the pioneer, Lorentz wanted to present the environmental tale of the Plains as one of decline and refused to see the dust storms as a natural disaster, instead depicting these events as human-created tragedies. The Plow That