Dustbowl Research Paper

The Dust Bowl was a dark and difficult part of life for people of the 1930’s. The Dust Bowl spread many diseases resulting in many people losing their lives. English professor, Cary Nelson, explained “The simplest acts of life, breathing, eating a meal, taking a walk, were

Though most everyone has heard of the Dust Bowl, many people don’t actually know what it is. “When rain stopped falling in the Midwest, farm fields began to dry up” (The Dust Bowl). Much of the nation’s crops couldn’t grow, causing major economic struggle. "The Homestead Act of 1862, which provided settlers with 160 acres of public land, was followed by the Kinkaid Act of 1904 and the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909” (Dust Bowl). This caused many inexperienced farmers to jump on this easy start of a career. Because of this, farmers in the Midwest had practiced atrocious land management for years. This included over plowing the land and using the same crops year after year. In this way, lots of fertile soil had gotten lost. This helped windstorms gather topsoil from the land, and whip it into huge clouds; dust storms. Hot, dry, and windy, almost the entire middle section of the United States was directly affected. The states affected were South

In the years leading to 1930, the Great Plains experienced a healthy amount of rain. The drought began in 1930 when the rain ceased. That year proved tough for farmers in the Great Plains, but they had no idea what was yet to come. In 1931, dust storms began to sweep through the Great Plains. Behind the dust, families stayed hidden inside their homes using wet clothes and such to guard the window sills and door frames. The families affected by the Dust Bowl were trapped inside of their homes for the six years of raging dust storms. The Great Depression was a number of years that consisted of workers being laid off, no job openings available, and an overall economic low in the United States. The Great Depression, which started in the years leading up to the drought, resulted in poor living conditions, including little to no income, scarce food, and unclean water. The Dust Bowl amplified those conditions for the affected families. (Steinbeck, Lewis, “Dust Bowl”

The Dust Bowl was a treacherous storm, which occurred in the 1930's, that affected the midwestern people, for example the farmers, and which taught us new technologies and methods of farming. As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place

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

During the 1930s, the United States faced various struggles such as The Great Depression- a time in which farmers suffered severely through many challenges. One of the challenges faced by farmers was the Dust Bowl tragedy; a dust storm affecting many farms throughout the midwest. The tragic Dust Bowl was a consequence due to lack of rainfall in the dry prairie lands, decreasing crop growth, and overproduction in farming causing more exposed land. It occurred because of advancements in farming technology, drought in the Great Plains, and the harvesting of grasslands.

The Dust Bowl also known as the dirty thirties was a major crisis that happened in the United States in the 1930's. Drought struck over the Midwest causing their crops to perish and eventually making a majority of the farmers go into poverty. Thus causing them to flee from their homes and their belongings. looking for opportunities elsewhere. Some walked, some took the train, and some drove if they were fortunate enough to afford one. There are many different primary sources that picture this crisis which all lead to the conclusion that it was a devastating era in the Midwest and filled with misfortune. A few primary examples are as follows.

People who lived in the Dust Bowl region lost their homes, jobs, and some, even their families. The dust storms were a result of years of treating farmland poorly. Mass migrations of Midwesterners began to occur as dust storms blew away whole houses. The Dust Bowl was an American catastrophe leaving millions of people homeless and jobless. The United States was left in panic as millions of westerners migrated in search of new jobs and homes.

Wind and dust rage over your tiny farm house, out in the depths of Oklahoma. You are startled awake, to find piles of dust on the creaky wood floor. You hurry out of bed and prepare for a long day out in the Dust Bowl. The Dust bowls was a disaster that tore apart the United States. The uprooting of soil sent dust and dirt in every direction. Dust traveled through the wind, hundreds of miles over the dry and weak farmland. The Dust bowl was a terrible event that lead to migration to the west, destruction of farmland, devastation of the health of family and cattle, and the creation of the soil conservation service.

The dust bowl was given the name dirty thirties for a good reason. It was a terrible time to be a Oklahoman citizen because there was giant menacing dust storms that covered homes in dust, a terrible drought that left oklahoma looking like a desert in some places, and no jobs which caused lots of people to leave Oklahoma.

The Dust Bowl was suffered the most in the Great Plains, in the area around Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas in the area of about 100,000,000 acres of land, in the 1930’s (Goldwag). The reason why these areas suffered the most was due to the number of fields all around them. The area suffered hardships due to human error, heat, and drought, turning fields into powder (Goldwag). This caused the hardships of the great depression to be much worse than imagined. This then implies food shortages due to the droughts, making it very difficult to feed the poor in the times of the great depression. When the droughts began to hit the plains, roughly one third of farmers left their homes, looking for migrant work (Trimarchi). These folks were known as okies (Trimarchi). The Dust Bowl affected a large area of the nation, and many peoples lives changed because of

The dust bowl was not only a tragic turning point in U.S. history, but also helped shape and mold the people of this time period. This experience not only changed and affected

Imagine being in school and hiding under the benches to avoid the incoming storm. Darkness and dust making you dizzy; destruction of your land and the diminishing numbers of your livestock. This was the life of those during the Dust Bowl, a period of agricultural crisis that lasted a decade long. Severe storms ruined ecology, agriculture, homes and lives throughout the American plains. These powerful

Many were forced to leave their land in order to survive such an event. The drought and misuse of land led to the physical effects of the Dust Bowl. The emotional toll was greater. It was stated in Out of the Dust, “Those men, they used to be best friends. Now they can’t be civil with each other.” Stress drifted many apart as everyone was competing with one another. Many lost their jobs and couldn’t provide for their families. It was the perfect opportunity to move to California because conditions in the area were still good. The land there was fertile. Many migrants had not seen fertile land in a long while. All the land they could remember was that of a worn out mess. Along with the fertile land, there was a mild climate. It was different then what these migrants were used to. Conditions never changed drastically. All knew what was to come ahead. A lot of hardships were still encountered. Finding work was still very difficult to do. This was because there was not enough work to occupy all of the people. Hard conditions were dealt with in order to receive a little bit of money. Finding a job, any job, was considered to be a blessing. Even then, in times considered to be fair, women did not receive very much pay. This was because they could not work as much as the males. With males requiring work, women were not accepted easily and were lucky to even find jobs. Luckily these times have concluded. No longer does one

The cause of the Dust Bowl was a mixture of natural drought and poor farming practices. It started in 1931. The Dust Bowl was a disaster for many reasons. First, many people lost their lives. Secondly, there was a drought so the crops were damaged and the people had no water. Also, plagues of grasshoppers moved on the Plains and ruined whatever was left of the crops. Plus, between the dust and ground a lot of electricity was built up. Lastly, the Dust Bowl lasted nearly a decade.