When Wheat Failed, Oil Beckoned: Rural Desperation and New Dreams in Depression-Era North Dakota

Authors

Gavin FinckFollow

Files

Description

This zine explores how economic desperation during the Great Depression reshaped the attitudes of North Dakota farm families, leading them to view oil development as a potential path to survival and long-term stability. By combining scholarly research with primary-source context, it highlights how personal hardship, state leadership, and broader economic forces converged to transform oil from a speculative curiosity into a serious alternative to failing agriculture.

Publication Date

2-6-2026

Recommended Citation

Finck, Gavin, "When Wheat Failed, Oil Beckoned: Rural Desperation and New Dreams in Depression-Era North Dakota" (2026). History Hawks: A North Dakota History Zine. 11.
https://commons.und.edu/history-hawks/11

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.