The Role Of The Dust Bowl Migration In The United States

But when the Dust Bowl came the american economy dropped. For instance to explain more about the Dust Bowl, in a article written by Marcia Trimarchi, who studied English at Skidmore College wrote. “They settled there to farm. They were prosperous in the decades that followed, but when the 1930s rolled in, so did strong winds, drought and clouds of dust that plagued nearly 75 percent of the United States between 1931 and 1939, The era became known as the legendary Dust Bowl.” (Trimarchi). In a article made by Robin A. Fanslow a writer for the American Folklife Center it illustrates about what the Dust Bowl did. “In 1932, many of the farms dried up and blew away creating what became known as the "Dust Bowl." (Fanslow). Most of the dust from the Dust Bowl created many storms as said in a page written by Cary Nelson, a professor at the University of Illinois. “In 1932, The number of dust storms increase. Fourteen are reported this year; next year there will be 38.” (Nelson). These dust storms were called black blizzards and they came often, then the worst dust storm came in 1935 on April 14. “Black Sunday. The worst "black blizzard" of the Dust Bowl occurs, causing extensive damage.” Writes Cary Nelson (Nelson).

During the 1930’s,a whole decade was full of dust bowl’s which were causing people to lose everything and becoming poor.The plains were where the dust bowls started spreading to countries like Kansas,Oklahoma,Texas and New Mexico.The dust bowls would kill off all the crops and leave areas with drought.people would start moving out of the countries and others would stay.

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 Dust Bowl began in the 1930s and lasted a decade. It was sometimes referred to as the “Dirty Thirties”, which was the name given to the worst natural and manmade disaster in U.S. history. The lives of thousands, both young and old, were lost due to the damaging effects of the dust. The Dust Bowl started in the Midwest and affected Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and part of Nebraska. However, the physical damage was felt throughout the nation, when the winds took the dust beyond these states. What natural and manmade causes created this human tragedy? How did it contribute to the decline of the economy and the era known as the Great Depression? How did the people of the United States persevere through this tragedy, and will we have to go through another devastating era like this again?

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,

During the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, the United States underwent a series of changes that had a drastic effect on people across the nation. As the economy began to slow to a halt, millions of people were left broke and without jobs. As the country’s farmers were paralyzed with debt, food prices increased radically (McElvaine). During the mid-1930s, a series of droughts coupled with poor agricultural methods led to years of soil erosion and dust storms known as the Dust Bowl, a catastrophe that destroyed farms throughout the Southern Great Plains (Shafer, Low). As a result, many farmers were forced to abandon their land to seek employment elsewhere. These migrant workers, attracted by the fertility and familiarity of the area, traveled to California towns such as Salinas, where they labored tirelessly for wealthy planters (Cayton, Gorn, Williams). The events of the Great Depression Era, following years of difficulty and poverty, paved the way to an entirely new way of life for Americans.

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.

In the early 1930s through the 1936, a massive event called the Dust Bowl occurred also known as the Dirty Thirties, dramatically affected areas within Oklahoma, Kansas, and Northern Texas due to extensive windstorms. This event forced numerous people to evacuate their hometowns. The Dust Bowl had a significant impact on society, it caused farmers to have no control of their agriculture because of the dried up land. Once the land dried up there was no way to renovate or replace the soil. This dilemma lead to more citizens to depend on the government for help, financially.

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.

The 1930s were seasons of extensive hardship on the Great Plains. Settlers managed with the Great Depression, as well as with years of droughts that dove an already suffering society into an attack of tireless dust storms that lasted for months. The Dust bowl conveyed an enormous agrarian and monetary hit to the Great Plains and destroyed what was left of the United States Economy during the Great Depression. It continued for a decade, 1930 to 1939, and wrecked ranches and lives all over Texas, Oklahoma panhandles, Colorado, parts of New Mexico, Canada, and Kansas. Monstrous dust storms wrecked pretty much everything from harvests, overwhelming ranches, in such a way it crushed the income and careers of thousands of farmers.

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

The dust bowl is another name for the southern plains of the United States which suffered from severe dust storm during the 1930s. As high winds stormed through Texas, Nebraska, and other states many people died and millions of dollars were suffered in damage. During this period of time, the United States was suffering the effects of the Great Depression and this dust storms worsened the actual economic status of the United States. Many people were forced to leave their homes and move to other states in search of a better way of living. The dust bowl was caused by many reasons but the biggest reason is the excessive use of land

The Dust Bowl was a time period in which many dust storms affected the agriculture and economy of the United States. Before the dust storms and droughts, the land being used by the farmers was already being damaged. Overuse had caused the soil to become useless, and by over-cultivating the land, farmers were no longer able to use the once fertile soil, causing a major impact on the lives of those involved in agriculture.

In the summer of August 7, 1931, farmers have been preparing for this year’s crops to be planted. Although there has been a severe drought occurring and the Great Depression not far behind, farmers continue to plow and plant, hoping for golden rows of wheat to sell. Little did they know that all of this over plowing and drought would lead to a disaster that will sweep through the southern plains for about eight harsh years. The dust bowl or the dirty thirties affected states such as Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arkansas. The people that had lived there were not prepare for what was about to come. High winds caused dust to blow in clouds, creating huge storms that were unavoidable.