The Dust Storm And Its Impact On The Area Of The Great Plains

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

To keep the Great Plains residents healthy, “The Red Cross opened six emergency hospitals to deal with the crisis” (Brown 37). This shows that the Dust Bowl crisis got so bad that organizations like the Red Cross enlisted to help the Dust Bowl residents get back on their feet and become happy and healthy once again. To help with the situation, “The federal government developed programs to aid Dust Bowl residents” get back on their feet. This reveals that everyone had to join in the help get the Great Plains get back to its former glory and ability to produce crops. This also shows that the federal government was working to help prevent a disaster this big from occurring again. Finally “The long dry spell ended in the autumn of 1939. Rain drenched the plains for the two days and nights” (Heinrichs 39). This is important because nature finally ran its course and nourished the water-deprived soil. This shows that the long-awaited end to the Dust Bowl and drought had finally ended, bringing hope to not only Dust Bowl residents but all of the United States. The Dust Bowl, an event that caused so much destruction to the Great Plains and the American economy, was finally

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

During the Great Depression farmers had to produce more wheat in order to turn a profit. They expanded their fields, and dug up natural drought resistant grasses, leaving the top soil vulnerable to wind erosion. Plow based farming also played a big role in making the top soil vulnerable to wind erosion. The severe drought taking place at the same time made things worse. Wind kicked up

The ‘Dirty Thirties’ is perhaps one of the most known time periods in American History. During the 1930s, the worst and longest drought occurred in the United States, this was also know as the Dust Bowl. According to Christopher Klein, the Dust Bowl is considered both a man-made and natural disaster. In fact, many events contributed to the Dust Bowl such as poor farming techniques, a severe drought, and economic depression.

In 1934-1936 the actual Dust Bowl happened. This was when the massive and deadly storms hit the prosper and growing Midwest Panhandle. In 1936, a more severe storm spread out of the plains and across most of the nation. The drought years were followed with record breaking heavy rains, blizzards, tornadoes and floods. In September 1930, it rained over five inches in a very short time in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The flooding in Oklahoma was accompanied by a dirt storm, which damaged several small buildings and other farm structures. Later that year, the regions were hit again by a strong dirt storm from the southwest until the winds gave way to a blizzard from the north.

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,

Imagine a great wall closing in on you with nowhere to run. Imagine sweeping a floor of sand that will never go away. Imagine having a terrible cough that leaves your throat irritated and raw to the point where you are coughing up blood. Imagine the disappointment of realizing a possible rain cloud is really a wall of dust rushing your way. For people living in the Midwest during the 1930s this was not the conjuring of imagination but a reality. “Decade long natural catastrophe of biblical proportions… when plagues of grasshoppers and swarms of rabbits descended on parched fields,” (Burns, “The Dust Bowl”). What seemed like the extinction

While families migrated toward this region, the western plains were experiencing some of the greatest droughts to ever occur. In addition to this, “the massive plowing, plus overgrazing by cattle, largely destroyed the native grasses that held the once rich soil in place” (West 1). These settlers were farming on foreign land that they were absolutely new to and maintained the unyielding perception that “land could be shaped by human will” (Black Blizzard). Their rationale was so clouded by the belief that the resources present in the moment were limitless, that they did not see the accumulating cloud of dust slowly slithering across the land. These uneducated farmers were planting soil-depleting crops, which “caused the destruction of organic matter or the loss of minerals in excess of those

Natural Disasters have always been a major part of history. Disasters have helped shape history and expand mankind’s knowledge of atmospheric sciences. The influence of these disasters also can’t be ignored. One such disaster that left its mark on history is the Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was a period in the 30s in which severe dust storms swept across Southern plains of the United States (Dust Bowl). The Dust Bowl got its name when it first appeared in a newspaper article on April 15, 1935 (Shum). The Dust Bowl occurred due to widespread drought in the region and severe erosion (Long 1). Drought and violent winds caused widespread crop failure and the discouraged farmers did not practice proper erosion prevention measures (Long 1). Consequently,

During the 1910s to 1920s wheat prices raised because World War one was happening so Europe was demanding crops.So many farmers plowed millions of acres of land that then they didn't need.Then in 1931 the wheat prices plummeted and crops began to fail.So all of the land that the farmers had plowed it all went to waste and the soil was all

The dust bowl covered fields of crops entirely. Since the dust storms started, there was no more crops. There was a severe drought because there was no water and later lot’s of sand came in. Once all that sand came in, it completely covered all the soil for the crops. In present day, I assume that the Great plains is still recovering from the the dust bowl. There was so much sand that it would take a long time for the to return to its original state.

Each year the storms kept getting worse. To try to help this disaster President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Soil Conservation Act. It showed farmers how to plant in a more sustainable way. This helped the soil a lot because the farmers were not alyase tilling the ground. Today farmers probably still use these techniques to help conserve the

Sunday, April 14, 1935, the day that is probably the most related to the dustbowl, is known as the Black sunday (Dust bowl). It was caused by a mighty strong front that swept across the plains. Burns stated “Some 850 million tons of topsoil blew away in 1935 alone.” (Pbs) .The average american car only weighs about 2 tons,

During the 1930’s, major cities were suffering from the Great Depression. Meanwhile in the Mid-West, from 1931 to 1939, farmers fought the Dust Bowl. After the Great War had ended, improper agricultural practices were being employed. Then the drought came. With a layer of top-soil unprotected, the harsh winds of the midwest picked it up. This formed giant clouds of dust, that could block out the sun for days and find a way into every crack and crevice.