Drought Can Occur In The Dust Bowl Of The 1930s

The Dust Bowl, battering the Midwest for nearly a decade with high winds, bad farming techniques, and drought, became a pivotal point in American history. The wind storm that seemed relentless beginning in the early 1930’s until its spell ended in 1939, affected the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and the broader agriculture industry. The catastrophic effects of the Dust Bowl took place most prominently around the Great Plains, otherwise known as the farming belt, including states such as Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas, which were hit extraordinarily hard. Millions of farming acres destroyed by poor farming techniques was a major contributor to what is considered to be one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in American history. This period resulted in almost a decade of unstable farming and economic despair. Thousands of families sought government assistance in order to survive. Luckily, government aid to farmers and new agriculture programs that were introduced to help save the nation’s agriculture industry benefited families and helped the Great Plains recover from the Dust Bowl. Furthermore, the poor conditions in the farm belt were also compounded by the Great Depression as it was in full swing as the Dust Bowl began to worsen. In addition, World War I was also underway which caused a high demand for agricultural products, such as wheat, corn, and potatoes to be at its peak, which lured many people to the farm belt with the false expectation that farming

In the 1930’s the cities Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and fell into a severe drought. They drought had lasted almost a decade, and on top of that the states had big dust storms. All the states got dust storms so much we all started to call them to“Dust Bowls.” Unfortunately not everyone could get up and move, most farmers were forced to stay. Since the farmers had to stay they had to make the most of what they had. The had no water for the crops, farm animals, or themselves.

The documentary, Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s by Donald Worster paints a surreal mosaic of life on the Great Plains during the dirty thirties. He does this by illustrating various causations and correlations as well as specific rural towns in the Dust Bowl that exhibit them, and public institutions whose objective was the restoration of the Great Plains to a fertile state as before the coming of the Capitalistic agriculturist that wreaked havoc on the ecosystem. Worster then uses the above as a fulcrum to his main argument, “…there was in fact a close link between the Dust Bowl and the Depression – that the same society produced them both, and for similar reasons. (p.5) He further goes on to explain that the crisis in the Great Plains was primarily caused by man and not nature (Worster, p.13). This was primarily due to the fact that man had never truly lived in equilibrium with the land on the high plains; they exploited the prairies to produce beyond their capacity, thus causing severe environmental breakdown. The fault was not all the agriculturists of course, part of the blame, as Worster points out, is rooted culturally in our capitalistic, industrialized values and ideals. One spokesman stated, “We are producing a product to sell, and that profitability of that product depended on pushing the land as far as it could go.” (Worster, p.57) To fully illuminate the problems at hand, he uses Cimarron County in the Oklahoma panhandle, and Haskell County,

An empty rocking chair sat on a front porch. Tattered sheets hung in the windows. A windmill slowly turned. Hinges on a chicken coop door whined in the breeze while the door smacked the frame. Everywhere the eye looked there was dust, no green grass, no fields of wheat just dirt and dust as far as one could see. Inside the house the dust crept through the cracks, got on the furniture, dishes, in food, and on the beds. Even the very act of breathing was difficult as the dust violated the nose and lungs. It irritated the eyes and ears with no relief. There was no escaping the dust, the wind—it was a constant state of dirt.

During the late 1920s farmers had rick and great soil up until the dust bowl which was when a whole city known for farming was covered in a blanket of black and nasty dust. When this first occurs people thought it would blow past within a few weeks but that never happened. As more and more dust storms came to the area people began to wonder if it was worth it to stay in a farming town that was no longer ok for farming. The population of the city dropped by 59% over the 7 year span which is insane to think considering that the population was small to be gain with. After a long 7 year battle with the weather and Mother Nature the sky's opens up and begs in to spray water and in that moment they knew it would all be

The Dust Bowl drought was the worst in U.S. history that was around 1930. It was in the mid west where it covered sixty percent of the country. Millions of people had to move to other parts because it lasted four years. It was "at its peak in 1934" according to "National Climate Data Center". We already have a lot of drought in California and west although one might say it is all of the U.S. With little rain and high tempatures in the summers drys out the vegatation which become a hazard for fires. Global warming might have some to do with the problem of drought. High populations need more water, with more water being used, depletes resources of water supplies which causes drought also. People need to become more aware of the use of the use of water, a lot of people take it for granite that there is plenty out there for all of us to share. In fact, if we don't start to conserve, we might not have water like we do in the future.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s had such an antagonistic effect on the United States economy that was already plummeting. The Dust Bowl affected the U.S economy in just about every way possible ranging from agriculture to finances including government expenses to population changes. This phenomena can be considered as one of the worst natural disasters that has affected the United States.

Farmers were affected by the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. “Much of the Roaring '20s was a continual cycle of debt for the American farmer, stemming from falling farm prices and the need to purchase expensive machinery.” (UShistory.org). The farmers were struggling with money and affording the tools needed to grow a crop. The farming way of life was slowly fading away. During the era of the Dust Bowl, there was a major drought, so farmers struggled with maintaining enough water for their crops to grow.

The Dust Bowl, it was the largest man-made ecological disaster in the 1930s. Although some people might argue that human have very little to do with it, or the whole event was nothing but the result of climate change, there are many factors to prove that human activities such as, overgrazing, heavy agricultural machinery, overly expended the grass land for farming, and habitat destruction were the key factors that led to the Dust Bowl. When watching the documentary about the Dust Bowl, one can see that before the Europeans and the farmers took over the land, it was naturally covered with beautiful native plants, such as tall grass and flowers. In the meantime, there were also native species like coyotes, buffalos, and rabbets which were totally controlled in term of numbers. But also, they were there as a

A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions that results in water-related problems. When rainfall is less than normal for several weeks, months, or years, the flow of streams and rivers declines, water levels in lakes and reservoirs fall, and the depth to water in wells increases. If dry weather persists and water-supply problems

The Dust Bowl (1931-1939) is the name given to parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado that suffered from extensive farming and natural drought. When homesteaders started farming and raising cattle on this land, these practices left the soil exposed to the danger of erosion by the strong winds that blow across the flat plain (Dust Bowl, n.d.). These winds, combined with a severe drought caused three to four inches of topsoil to blow away. This caused the federal and state governments to develop programs for soil conservation and rehabilitation (Dust Bowl, n.d.). In the past there was not a plan to prepare and recover from a drought. Now the National Incident Management System, or NIMS, provide guidelines to handle all

In the 1930’s better known as “the dirty thirties”, the dust bowl effected thousands of framers and their families in the Southwest and the Midwest. The incredible power of dust clouds by wind erosion, over framing and the long drought lead to a turning point in the ways of agriculture and the economy. This is important because this event caused families to migrate to other mostly the west and even led to death and disease.

The dust bowl was a devastating time in the United States history that occurred during the 1930s, caused by atypically high temperatures, perpetual drought and new farming methods. Vigorous winds disturbed the topsoil, resulting in overwhelming dust storms which destroyed an immense amount of farms, in upwards of 100,000. These storms devastated the source of income for the farmers affected. The dust bowl was located in the Great Plains region, which includes the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Northern Texas. Thousands of workers were faced with an impasse, become a laborer, doing mindless work for miniscule wages, or move away and search for better work. (San José State University) The people brought to these decisions that chose to

In studying United States history, you have probably heard of the Dust Bowl. It was the biggest and greatest drought the country has ever seen. The drought lasted for nine to ten years. It began in the Midwestern and southern Great Plains in the year 1931.

Although the main reason a drought occurs is the lack of precipitation, it is also caused by other factors. High pressure is one of the main contributors of drought. Although a high-pressure system brings clear, cool weather, if the high-pressure system continues for a long period of time, this will eventually lead to a drought (100 Ways, 2012).