Dust Bowl Sustainability

The dust bowl was a nitty gritty nightmare that lasted about a decade. It took place in the drought-stricken region of the United States, midst the Great Depression era. This period in time is generally considered as one of the hardest times in history. The dust bowl storms were often so atrocious that people referred to them as "Black Blizzards." Not only did the dust bowl make things tough for farmers, when the dust bowl swept up around 100 million acres of topsoil, but also for the rest of middle, United States.1

In the 1930’s disaster struck the Midwest. The tragic event, known as the Dust Bowl, records the worst man-made and natural ecological disaster in American history. The phenomenon lasted about a decade, ruining over 100,000,000 acres in the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas touching neighboring sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. These areas are known for having little rainfall, light soil, and high winds, which was a potentially vicious mixture. The Dust Bowl required thousands of families to abandon their farms, which for most of them was their life. Leaving behind livestock to suffocate, crops to die, and homes to be deserted. This disaster affected American history ecologically, socially, and even medically.

The reasons why the people had started the madness. People’s actions caused the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl left people with nothing at the time. It also killed lots of people around the areas of the Dust Bowl.“Most early settlers used the land for livestock grazing until agricultural mechanization combined with high grain prices during World War I.” (Dust Bowl) People wanted even more when they should have stopped sooner. “By 1941 much of the land was rehabilitated, but the region repeated its mistakes during World War II as farmers again plowed up grassland to plant wheat when grain prices rose.” (Dust Bowl) The land was improving a little bit, but the people made the same mistake again. “ Lured by a land lush with shrubs, grasses, and soil so rich it looked like chocolate, the farmers didn’t realize that what they were witnessing.”(Introduction, Surviving The Dust Bowl) The

“We live with the dust, eat it, sleep with it,watch it strip us of possessions and the hope of possession”- Avis D. Carlson, a farmer that went through the hard times in the 1930’s. Many people thought the same way as Davis. The Dust Bowl could have easily been prevented, and is crucial to be educated on because it still affects us today, it could be repeated, and the Dust Bowl was entirely man made, meaning North America needs to learn from their previous mistakes to prevent a repeat.

Additionally, these wars, the great depression, and the Dust Bowls set motion for what is now known as the Great Migration. The Great Migration was a war spurred movement of African Americans migrating from the rural South to the North. This resulted in a total of 700,000 African Americans resettling in the North (Foner). In the commencement of the memoir Angelou and her brother Bailey are transported to Stamps Arkansas : “ … we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas”(4). Presently after the great depression Angelou and her brother migrate back North once again to visit their mother in San Francisco. Little did they know that they were one of the 700,000 African Americans partaking

Agriculture in California was the reason many migrants viewed the state as one with many economical opportunities. There were fewer jobs available than those advertised. Even the jobs that were available provided terrible pay. One had to think of the idea that low pay was greater than no pay. Corporate farms provided poor living conditions, but it had to be ignored by those who were seeking jobs (“The Dust Bowl”). White folks from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas increased in quantity. They were in search of harvesting jobs (“Mass Exodus from the Plains”). The WPA, Workers Progress Administration, was one to provide migrants with many jobs. This was part of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. A total of 8.5 million people were employed, and they earned

James Williford, a writer based in Washing D.C., wrote articles about Ken Burns film “Dust Bowl.” It is a non-fiction based film that portrays the lives of individuals during the “Dirty Thirties.” Williford’s writing focuses on the lives of children. Survivors interviewed in “Dust Bowl” are recognized throughout the website article. This piece of information gives good descriptive details from survivor’s stories on the “Dust Bowl” as a child. The thoughts and feelings that would overtake their body and the horrific memories that are ultimately unable to

It is 1929, the stock market has unexpectedly crashed, and we are currently in the deepest and darkest economic decline. Industrial output is in a downward spiral and levels of unemployment are quickly rising as a result of failing companies disposing of their employees. It is now 1933, and 20% to 25% (13 to 15 million) of Americans are unemployed with nearly half of the country’s banks failing and depositors have lost over $140 billions in savings. Millions of people are starving and are living in ghettos or hoovervilles. Poor farming methods have led to an increase in the Dust Bowl, which is destroying towns and farming fields. Over a third of farmers defaulting on loans taken out during years of prosperity, selling land at records levels.

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

Between 1930 and 1940, the southwestern Great Plains region of the United States suffered a severe drought. Once was great farm land for many settlers in the great plains became a desolate wasteland, which became known as the Dust Bowl. To make matters even worse the government passed the “Homestead Act” which helped move farmers and settlers into the central part of the U.S once the Native Americans were removed. Most of the settlers farmed their land or grazed cattle during the time which resulted in the loss of crops and loss of livestock because the horde conditions. Another result of the Dust Bowl was farms farming dry land on the Great Plains which led to the systematic destruction of the prairie grasses in the ranching regions, overgrazing

of the drought,and of the lack of rainfall.The dust bowl was at the end of the great

In this game, “Interactive Dust Bowl,” I embarked an experience that would show me what life was like on the southern Great Plains during the dustbowl. If I were to live in the Dust Bowl, I would have faced tough decisions such as expanding my farm, meeting neighbors, or just give up and head west. The decisions I made throughout this game, are real life decisions that people of that era made. I wanted to stay in the dustbowl, until I finally said that was “enough” and finally head west because I couldn’t keep my family living in tough conditions. I think it was a great decision and it’s something I would have done if I lived in the dust bowl.

Between the 1930s and 1940s, the southwestern Great Plains region of America suffered a severe environmental disaster known as the Dust Bowl, that resulted from the combination of a huge water shortage and harsh farming techniques. The drought-stricken plains experienced relentless dust storms that swept through Texas to Nebraska, killing crops, livestock and people. The Dust Bowl further intensified the devastating economical impacts of the Great Depression and drove hundreds of families to migrate in search of work and better living conditions all the while capturing the nation’s artists, musicians, and writers.

    Just after the Great Depression had took its way another disaster happened. When the weather patterns over the ocean changed and the Pacific became cooler and the Atlantic was warmer is affected the jet stream.

The average human being, multiplied by the Earth’s population, would need to have about four Earths just to supply enough resources (Footprint Calculator). Thinking of people around the world, the people of the United States seem to take a lot of their life for granted. Many people when they hear of the polar ice caps melting wave it off and either don’t believe in it or believe it is not their problem. Well it is their problem and if we don’t jump on the issue soon we will not be giving our future generations much of a life. This brings me to the idea of sustainability. A simple description of the word means that what we have today we will also have tomorrow, next week, next year, or even the next lifetime. Although that is the modest version sustainability is much, much more than just that. Sustainability is derived from three main parts of the human life: environmental, social, and economic. Each being just as important as the other. Environmental is the most well-known aspect of sustainability in human life, but both social and economic take their place in keeping this Earth sustainable.