Dust Bowl Dbq

It all started with a drought in the Midwest in the 1930s. “The great western explorer”, John Wesley Powell, “determined that 20 inches of rain annually was the minimum for successful farming.”(Doc. E). High Plains Regional

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

According to answers.com, a dust bowl is a region reduced to aridity by drought and dust storms. The best-known dust bowl is doubtless the one that hit the United States between 1933 and 1939.

Jim Powell did a great job throughout FDR’s Folly of making the reading simple, easy, and fully comprehendible for an audience to read. For example, when he is discussing the Wagner Act, he states, “A principal effect of the Wagner Act was to facilitate union strikes and violence.” Later on, Powell elaborates on the Wagner Act by saying, “By giving labor unions the monopoly power to exclusively represent employees in a workplace, the Wagner Act had the effect of excluding blacks.” Some readers might not understand what the Wagner Act was or did prior to this book, but the author did an exceptional job of further explaining it so the reader could grasp the full topic without needing prior knowledge of it.

The Dust Bowl was one of the worst economic and tragic events of the 20th century. The Dust Bowl negatively affected people who lived there in a personal way. Some of them included how badly it had affected the children living in that time, how it had affected families health, and how badly it affected the economy causing a mass corruption.

The Dust Bowl negatively affected people who lived there in a personal way. The dust bowl was one of the worst natural disasters in the U.S.

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Money was extremely scarce due to the war, farmers tried to balance this out by overusing the land. The problems escalated due to the drought and the Great Depression. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brainstormed the New Deal to help guide the United States out of the Great Depression. Recurring events will help farmers and landowners preserve their soil in the future. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s worsened the economic conditions of the United States but led to the advancements in agriculture.

Although the dirt storms were fewer in 1934, it was the year, which brought the Dust Bowl national attention. In May, a severe storm blew dirt from Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas as Far as New York City and Washington D.C. In spite of the terrific storm in May, the year 1934 was pleasant respite from the blowing dirt and tornadoes of the previous year. But nature had another trick up her sleeve, the year was extremely hot with new records being made and broken at regular intervals. Before the year had run its course, hundreds of people in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas had died from the heat. In 1935, this storm was followed by another and another in rapid succession. A description of the storm of coming was made by a farmer:" The storm caused a tremendous amount of damage and suffering. A giant dust storm engulfs Boise City. Tremendous winds rolled up to two miles high, and stretched out a hundred miles with speeds faster than 50 miles per hour. The storms destroyed vast areas of the Great Plains farmland. The methods of fighting the dust were as many, and varied as were the means of finding a way to get something to eat and wear. Every possible crack was filled, sheets were placed over the windows and blankets were hung behind the doors. Often the places were so tightly plugged against all the dust that the houses became extremely hot and stuffy. The clouds appeared on the horizons with a thunderous roar. Turbulent dust clouds rolled in

The timeline of the dustbowl characterizes the fall of agriculture during the late 1920s, primarily the area in and surrounding the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl was created by a disruption in the areas natural balance. “With the crops and native vegetation gone, there was nothing to hold the topsoil to the ground” (“Dust Bowl and” 30). Agricultural expansion and dry farming techniques caused mass plowing and allowed little of the land to go fallow. With so little of the deeply rooted grass remaining in the Great Plains, all it took was an extended dry season to make the land grow dry and brittle. When most of the land had been enveloped by the grass dust storms weren’t even a yearly occurrence, but with the exponentiation of exposed land, the winds had the potential to erode entire acres. This manmade natural disaster consumed such a large amount of the South's agriculture that it had repercussions on the national level. The Dust Bowl was a “97-million-acre section

Conditions that produced the Dust Bowl was things such as severe drought with wind erosion. Regional dust storms were forming over time. While this was happening there was an aggressive reform by the federal government. Migration from rural to urban areas was very popular. Leading up to the Dust Bowl from 1933 - 1941 which hurt farmers, rural businesses, and the government. Crops failed over this time period and There were unusually high temperatures during the Dust Bowl. In the 1930s it was usual for people to look around for work so when the farmers took the road to California, it was no surprise since they had families to feed and money to make. Neither was drought, agricultural crisis, or dust storms, but not as severe.

Although many people believe that the Dust Bowl of the 1830’s was not something that could be prevented by the farmers, the Dust Bowl could have been prevented and it is the farmers fault that the Dust Bowl happened. This is because they cut down anything that was holding the soil together and acting as windbreaks, the farmers used dryland farming techniques, and they used the wrong types of plows.

This meant there was no rain in the prairies. According to High Plains Regional Climate, University of Nebraska, in document E, the minimal amount of rainfall in inches per year that is needed to have an optimal harvest is 20 inches. Also in document E is the amount of rainfall between 1931 - 1940 was between 9 to 20 inches of rainfall. This obviously directly impacted the Dust Bowl because all of the farming halted due to the lack of rainfall during the Dust Bowl period.

During The great depression, African Americans had to pretend to be white in order to get and keep a job. (Malcolm's mother had to do this in order to keep her job)

People and livestock were killed, and crops failed across the entire region. Winds were 60 mph, then it hit. The dust bowl was a decade long full of horrific winds and memories that will never be erased. Parents couldn't take care of their children. The land turned against them, children couldn't even go outside.

The Great Plains was in the midst of a record breaking drought for 8 years, which further enabled the soil to be blown into air. Rapid mechanization of farm equipment and increased use of gasoline tractors and field plowing combines, contributed to farmers decisions to convert their grassland fields into plowed cropland. This increased the loose soil that was able to rise off the land with no trees as windbreaks, to stop the wind from ravaging the plains.