How Did The Dust Storm Affect Farmers In The 1930s

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

`Many farmers settled in the Southern Plains and started to grow their crops their. The were prosperous for decades. The crops grew extremely well, and the farmers prospered. However when the 1930s hit, so did droughts and clouds of dust. They plagued nearly seventy-five percent of the U.S.

The Great Depression was a horrible time in American history, with as much as one-fourth of the population out of work. One of the hardest hit areas of the population was the agricultural center of the United States in the area that would come to be known as the Dust Bowl. The problems that the people of the Dust Bowl dealt with however were not a result of the Depression as a whole but instead were the result of a combination of bad farming decisions and a horrible drought. Even though the timing makes it seem like the Dust Bowl experience in the 1930’s was a part of the Great Depression as a whole it was a totally different disaster that was occurring at the same time. The experience of the families that lived in the Dust Bowl during the 1930’s cannot be described in any way but as horrible, depressing, and almost hopeless.

The Dust Bowl was the period of time during the Great Depression in the Southern Plains where colossal clouds and storms of dust and dirt swept through neighborhoods, farms, and houses. It left everything covered in a thick layer of dirt and sand, even blinding those temporarily whom had happened to be caught in the midst of one, plastering their lungs with all of the air’s contents. “Children died from breathing in the dust. They called it ‘dust pneumonia,’” (Background Essay). But, what caused these storms? The source of the Dust Bowl in the plains were the lack of farming experience, the excessive farming America had done, and the drought.

The individuals in the Southern Plains did not acknowledge the dust storms as a threat, and continued to plow up the grass that held the soil together. A book by Donald Worster titled Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, offered vivid descriptions of the effects of dust storms. One example was of a “small town printer [named] Nate White…” who was unable to see and “it was as if someone had put a blindfold over his eyes.” (Doc. A). The citizens in the Southern Plains had experienced the dust storm’s effects but, “ignored the radio warnings, went about their business as usual, and later wondered what had hit them” (Doc. A). In the 1930s, the Great Depression caused the wheat sales to drop due to unemployment in the east. Farmers then

Many events occurred before the years of the Dust Bowl began. The farmers plowed up all of the ground to grow “cash crops” (Marrin 58). The plowing of the soil left no grass to hold down the topsoil, leaving it vulnerable for wind erosion. In 1930, the people of the Great Plains had the biggest shortage of water in the history. “Seventeen million people were affected” (Worster 11). In the early 1930’s, the temperatures went higher than they ever had before (Marrin 52). By 1932, most people had reached their breaking point. Before the dust storms began, there was a cutworm plague, a grasshopper plague, and a rabbit plague (Reis 51 and 52). Between all of the natural problems occurring, the land and people were both exhausted. They had no idea

While only 500 people died many homes, farms, and livelihoods were ruined from the flying dust storms. Even through all of its destruction the Dust Bowl taught many farmers the need of correct farming practices to make sure that the soil would stay both healthy and well grounded. Many unavoidable dust storms continued to harass the farmers of the American Plains, but none so destructive and severe as the Dust Bowl itself. Some researchers say it’s only a matter of time before another dust storm the size of the Dust Bowl strikes the American Plains once

The Dust Bowl brought about substantial negative effects on the economy and agriculture of the Great Plains and aggravated what was left of the American economy during the great Depression. The dust storms ruined everything on the Great Plains including crops and entire farms, hence ruining the careers and livelihoods of many farmers (Egan, 2). As a consequence, the American economy collapsed even more during the Great Depression. The help of the government and training on better farming techniques greatly helped the farmers to get back on their feet. A combination of human actions and environmental factors were responsible for causing the dust storms and in turn, the Dust Bowl made numerous people abandon their homes, suffer, and eventually

David C. King describes the dust bowl as a region and moment in the mid-1930s where hundreds of thousands of square miles were ambushed with dust storms after years of drought (6). Larason believes that the storms were caused by over cultivating farm land. When the farmers removed too much grass then cultivated the dirt until it was a fine

The “Dust Bowl” was the name given to the Great Plains region that was greatly affected by drought in the 1930’s during the Great Depression. The major contribution that led to the Dust Bowl was overproduction of crops however there were some natural causes. “Much of the soil there had been damaged by wind and rain. The soil in this area was subjected to

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 was a time during the 1930’s when a drought and over-farmed land caused years of dust storms to ravage the American southwest.Loose topsoil was picked up by strong winds to form black storms of dust and dirt. Farmers had to board up their houses in preparation for when the growing black cloud on the horizon would come crashing down on their houses. Thousands of farmers couldn't pay their loans due to lost crops and banks foreclosed on their farms. This event coincided with the height of the Great Depression, strengthening the effects of both terrible phenomena.

The 1930s were a time of hardship for the citizens living in The United States. The Dust Bowl and The Great Depression brought on many substantial consequences that affected many family’s lives entirely. The Great Depression was mainly caused by the stock market crash of 1929. Banks lost all of their money, therefore people were not able to retrieve the money that they had deposited in the bank. The Dust Bowl was a decade long dust storm that brought up farmland and carried it with the winds of the storm. Before the Dust Bowl, the farms had stripped the farmland of the moisture by over using the land, and when the drought came the land became especially susceptible to the winds that came shortly thereafter. The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression made thousands of people in the U.S. unemployed, the typical family dynamic changed, and people lost homes.

The Dust Bowl or the “Dirty Thirties” was a series of dust storms caused by farmers moving in and plowing, which made at least six feet of topsoil in some areas. A major drought hit and the topsoil got picked up by wind and this caused a lot of static electricity which killed crops. It also caused sickness like dust pneumonia and made plagues of rabbits and locusts.

During the 1930s, the southern regions of the Great Plains became known as the Dust Bowl due to the severe droughts and dust storms that plagued this region experienced. Part of this occurrence can be attributed to the farmers because, throughout the 1920s, many farmers had exhausted their farmland through the overproduction of crops and destruction of the protective layer of prairie grasses by plowing. This created several issues during the early 1930s when high winds and a drought hit the region. With few trees to hold the eroded soil in place, the winds created massive dust storms that spanned hundreds of miles. These storms, combined with the draught, devastated farmers and many were forced to move further west.