Title: Reading Check 10: Dust, Development, and the New Deal
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 12 · November 9–13, 2026: Crisis and Mobilization in the West, 1920s–1945

Q: A multicausal explanation of the Dust Bowl should connect drought with what?
- Drought joined to land use and markets
- Personal failure as the exclusive cause
- Railroad time zones as the main cause
- Changes in urban architectural styles
A: Drought joined to land use and markets

Q: Why should Farm Security Administration photographs be sourced?
- They were created without any subjects
- A federal program shaped purpose and use
- They cannot document material conditions
- They were never captioned or circulated
A: A federal program shaped purpose and use

Q: What did New Deal development expand in the West?
- Private philanthropy acting by itself
- Federal planning, jobs, and infrastructure
- A complete withdrawal of government power
- Collective landholding protected in every case
A: Federal planning, jobs, and infrastructure

Q: Name one piece of evidence from this unit and explain how its creator, audience, or collection context affects how a historian may use it.

Q: Make a one-sentence claim answering this unit question: How did environmental crisis, federal development, and wartime mobilization redistribute opportunity, coercion, and vulnerability in the West? Then identify one limitation, uncertainty, or counterexample that keeps the claim from becoming too broad.