The dust bowl was a frightening time for most people during the 1930s. severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion. The Dust Bowl negatively affected people who lived there in a personal way. During the Dust Bowl a lot families and people had to migrate to a different state.“The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of families to abandon their farms. ” ("Dust Bowl")Families had to abandon their farms which negatively affects the people because they could not grow crops during the dust bowl.“So many of them came from Oklahoma, migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left.” ("Dust Bowl")The people …show more content…
This negatively affected the people who were migrating and were in direct competition for jobs with longer- established residents and would keep creating conflict with those people. “Many people were not able to make a living in drought-stricken regions and were forced to migrate to other areas in search of a new livelihood. ("Drought in the Dust Bowl") Many people had no choice to leave which affected them in a personal way because they had to forced to leave in search of a new livelihood because they will mostly not survive through the Dust Bowl.”In addition, because of poverty and high unemployment, migrants added to local relief efforts, sometimes overburdening relief and health agencies. ” ("Drought in the Dust Bowl")People were super poor and were not making enough money to pay for things while migrating so this would affect people and families and it was too much for relief and health agencies.“The poor economy displaced more than just farmers as refugees to California; many teachers, lawyers, and small business owners moved west with their families during this time.( "Dust Bowl")The wealth and …show more content…
“The sky would darken for days, and even the most well sealed homes could have a thick layer of dust on furniture. In some places the dust would drift like snow, covering farmsteads.”("About The Dust Bowl")Everyone was trying so hard to let no dust in their house and even the best made house in there time still got dust in them, some people just wanted to give up trying to keep the dust out and it had an impact on everyone in was living in the house.“People spat up clods of dirt as big around as a pencil. An epidemic raged throughout the Plains: they called it dust pneumonia.” ("Surviving The Dust Bowl")People died from swallowing dirt and it would suffocate people at night. This made people scared of living in there town. Also it was sad because innocent people would die.”People tried to protect themselves by hanging wet sheets in front of doorways and windows to filter the dirt. They stuffed window frames with gummed tape and rags. But keeping the fine particles out was impossible.” ("Surviving The Dust Bowl")Everyone did anything they could to keep the dust out but it was not possible. People wanted to keep their family safe and it was sad to see someone from their family die just from the dust. People felt useless when they could not do anything about the situation they were in.“The dust permeated the tiniest cracks and crevices. Through it all, the farmers kept
Timothy Egan called the Dust Bowl "the worst hard times As the nation was hit with its worst economic disaster, the country was hit with its worst ecological disaster as well. Over 300 dust storms or dusters hit the Southern Great Plains during the 1930s. The hardest hit areas were theOklahoma and Texas panhandles. The land became almost uninhabitable, and over two million people left their homes throughout the course of the dust bowl in search of a new life elsewhere. Many ended up nearly starved to death and homeless.
The livestock was another group that was affected in the dust bowl. When the AAA demanded the farmers to plow over there land they killed 6 million young pigs were slaughtered. Many of those pigs just starved because the farmers were no longer working so they could not feed them. When the dust bowl came money farmers and ranchers livestock were killed and when they cut them open there was only dust in there lungs and guts. The cattle grazing was reduced and millions of more acres were plowed and planted.
Devastation pervaded the decade of the 1930s, which left many people struggling with hardships. High unemployment and homelessness rate preceded the nation. This destruction became known as the Dust Bowl. During the Dust Bowl, high winds referred to as the black blizzards wreaked havoc on the land. A principal, infamous author, Donald Worster, demonstrates in his book, “Dust Bowl The Southern Plains in the 1930s” the living conditions and obstacles people had faced along with the various explanations for the Dust Bowl.
The failure to apply dry land farming was also a factor in these dust storms. These storms affected thousands of families, forcing them to leave their homes. Many of these families moved to California to learn that the Great Depression had left the economic conditions there, close to the same they had left. The people that didn't go to California found a place to hide or died from inhaling the dust. The majority that died from inhaling the dust were infants or teens.
The article What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation, provides an insight on the effects of Harvest Gypsies’ publication. The article names the Dust Bowl era “the worst hard time.” This article has an emphasis on not only human hardships but also on how the dust bowl climate contributed to the era and the hardships associated with it. I found the connection between climate and migrant workers to be an interesting comparison. The article explains that during the worst years of the Great Depression, large areas of the North American Great Plains experienced severe, multi-year droughts that led to soil erosion, dust storms, farm abandonments, personal hardships, and distress migration on scales not previously seen.
The Dust Bowl negatively affected people in an economic way. How Drought played a big role in The Dust Bowl “ Federal aid to the drought-affected states was first given in 1932, but the first funds marked specifically for drought relief were not released until the fall of 1933. In all, assistance may have reached $1 billion (in 1930s dollars) by the end of the drought (Warrick et al., 1980). “ ( Source - http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/EconomicsoftheDustBowl.aspx )
During the Dust Bowl, the dust became a serious threat to health and life .When dust entered the lunge, the moisture them it into mud that attached to the organ. Many people suffered from breathing problems especially children. Livestock also suffered from the dusty air and many died from such unbearable environmental conditions. Scientist predicted that the illness resulted invisible microorganisms such as bacteria or germs that lived and multiplied in dust rather from the dusty clouds.
During the Dust Bowl some people made the decision to stay at their farms. Huge drifts of dirt piled up on homesteaders’ doors, came in the cracks of windows and came down from the ceilings. Barnyards and pastures were buried in dirt. After about 850 million tons of topsoil was blown away in 1935 alone. The government responded to this by saying “Unless something is done, the western plains will be as arid as the Arabian desert.”
Dust Bowl and Economics of the 1930s The Dust Bowl was a very desperate and troublesome time for America. The southwestern territories were in turmoil due to the arid effect of the drought causing no fertile soils. As the rest of America was being dragged along with the stock market crash and higher prices of wheat and crops since the producing areas couldn't produce. This was a streak of bad luck for the Americans as they were in a deep despair for a quite some time.
The dust bowl was considered the “Worst hard time” in american history. The Dust Bowl was a big cloud of dust that took place during the 1930’s in the middle of the Great Depression. The dust bowl was located in the southern great plains as it affected states like Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. The three main causes of the Dust Bowl were drought (Doc E), amount of land being harvest (Doc D), and the death shortgrass prairie (Doc C).
It has been 76 years since the dust bowl had ended. The dust bowl swept across Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas throughout 1930-1940. Before the dust bowl many people traveled to these states for good land. The dust bowl was caused by a drought and strong winds. The dust from the drought was being blown around by the strong winds and covering everything.
The disaster known as the Dust Bowl was a major setback for American and Americans in the Midwest. The Dust Bowl was a time in history where drought was at its peak. The drought was throughout the states; Colorado, Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The Dust Bowl lasted for six years, 1930 to 1936. The 1930s was not only known for the Dust Bowl, but for other reasons also like, The Great Depression and WW1.
It caused many people to get sick with dust pneumonia which was caused when people and the dust got into their lungs. 500 people died of dust pneumonia; there was no cure but people attempted to treat themselves with vaseline, lard, kerosene, turpentine, and skunk oil. It got so bad that they had to close schools and if you were outside too long you could suffocate or get lost in the dust storms(Morgan, Ethan, and Cole).Scholars at the University of Illinois agree with the idea that the Dust Bowl occurred to a combination of human and ecological factors, meaning that it might not of have been 100 percent preventable, but its effects could have been less severe with better farming practices. To prevent another Dust Bowl they use widespread irrigation use, which allows many farmers to buffer the effects of drought more than they would’ve been able to do in the 1930s.
The dust bowl is very serious. “But in the summer of 1931, the rains disappeared. Crops withered and died. There had always been strong winds and dust on the Plains, but now over plowing created conditions for disaster. There was dust everywhere, because the people couldve worried about others than themselves.
“With the gales came the dust. Sometimes it was so thick that it completely hid the sun. Visibility ranged from nothing to fifty feet, the former when the eyes were filled with dirt which could not be avoided, even with goggles ”( Richardson 59). The Dust Bowl was a huge dust storm in the 1930s that stretched from western Kansas to New Mexico. People that lived in that area could not step outside or they would get dust in their lungs.