What Caused The Dust Bowl Dbq

Lots of adults and children lost their lives during the 1930s. On April 18,1935, a gigantic, black cloud piled up on the western horizon it was called the Dust Bowl. What caused the Dust Bowl?  The Dust Bowl was caused by mechanization, drought, and a significant loss of grass.

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.

The Dust Bowl negatively affected people who lived there in a personal way. The dust bowl was one of the worst natural disasters in the U.S.

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 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

Avis Carlson described her life during the Dust Bowl. She said, “A trip to water to rinse the grit from our lips. And then back to bed with washcloths over our noses. We try to lie still, because every turn stirs the dust on the blankets.” There had always been dust storms on the Great Plains, so on March 15, 1935, Kansas ignored the warnings about a huge dust storm racing their way. There were many hardships that came with the Dust Bowl, but what actually started the Dust Bowl? The Dust Bowl was caused by the lack of rain, overplowing, and destruction of grassland.

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.

During the 1900’s a lot of devastating events occurred that led to the Dust Bowl. Some of these events were the stock market crash and the Great Depression. Specifically, the 1930’s was a period that held very severe dust storms. The dust storms remained extremely critical for about 6 years; this period of time became known as The Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl had tremendously negative effects on both the people in the region and the land in which the dust storms were located.

Conditions that produced the Dust Bowl was things such as severe drought with wind erosion. Regional dust storms were forming over time. While this was happening there was an aggressive reform by the federal government. Migration from rural to urban areas was very popular. Leading up to the Dust Bowl from 1933 - 1941 which hurt farmers, rural businesses, and the government. Crops failed over this time period and There were unusually high temperatures during the Dust Bowl. In the 1930s it was usual for people to look around for work so when the farmers took the road to California, it was no surprise since they had families to feed and money to make. Neither was drought, agricultural crisis, or dust storms, but not as severe.

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 Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Its primary area of impact was on the southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly affected, but were still affected by the drought, dust and agricultural decline. The agricultural devastation helped to lengthen the Depression whose effects were felt worldwide. The movement of people on the Plains were devastating to the area. People were forced to move out of their homes due to dust filling their houses with dust

The Dust Bowl of the 1930’s had such an antagonistic effect on the United States economy that was already plummeting. The Dust Bowl affected the U.S economy in just about every way possible ranging from agriculture to finances including government expenses to population changes. This phenomena can be considered as one of the worst natural disasters that has affected the United States.

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.

During the the great dustorms of the 1930s many people and animals dies of suffocation from the dust filling their lungs. The years of the great depression hit cities in small towns and especially the farms in the mid states very hard. So during those years the U.S was under a great depression and was starving for food from farmers that are not making enough money to make food so the government was going to give and farmer lots of money to make farms in the mid states and grow food and wheat for the other countries in europe. But by doing this the the farmers got new tractors and ravaged the land making more farmland but by killing the one plank keeping the earth together short grass.